Confidence building pre-season test for BJR
Brad Jones Racing are confident after completing a successful pre-season test day at Sydney Motorsport Park today.
The four-car team made the most of the available track time, running through a plethora of programs and ingesting the data from the valuable laps ahead of racing on Friday at the same circuit.
It was also a chance for the team to get to grips with the 2025 compound tyre and the new refuelling methods.
Making it hard to get a read on the pecking order, all teams ran new tyres at different parts of the day but BJR are confident in their efforts over the off season that they’ve made a step forward.
Andre Heimgartner, Macauley Jones and Jaxon Evans all shared the driving duties with their Enduro Cup co-drivers (Declan Fraser, Jordan Boys and Jack Smith).
While Bryce Fullwood watched on as BJR’s latest Super2 signing Brad Vaughan cut some laps during the test.
Racing gets underway for the Supercars Championship on Friday night in Sydney.
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Brad Jones
Team owner, Brad Jones Racing
“Overall a positive day for our team today. We were able to run through a lot of our programs and internally, the feeling is quite positive.
“The tyre deg is massive here. So I feel like when we come to an event like this we need extra green tyres that are the same compound that we are going to race on in our bank. Otherwise we are going to sit around all day or run on last year's tyre and not be sure if you’re making any progress.”
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
Today all finished up pretty well in fifth, looking forward to the weekend. We will see a bit of a different format. Got one practice thrown to qualifying and race. So it'll be good to get stuck into it. Looking forward to getting the year started and getting some tough racing.
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars driver, #14 Brad Jones Racing Camaro
"First day back in the car for 2025. Obviously, lots of things changed this year with the new tyre. Everyone didn't have very many tyres to run on, so we didn't really get to run on the tyre until probably 3:30. So most of day was on the old stuff. So it made it a little bit difficult trying to tune the car in on really old tyres, so I felt like the first part of the day was hard work. The last part of the day when we could put some tyres on it was really good, and getting some experience on this new tyre was valuable as well. Good day overall and forward to going racing this weekend."
Macauley Jones
Supercars driver, #96 Pizza Hut Racing Camaro
"It's a bit of a long day at this joint when you don't really get enough tyres for the amount of laps you kind of want to do. And then you're on an old tyre for a long time with the limited new ones. It was sort of a long morning, but the new tyre was interesting. I think the guys learned a fair bit from that. Sort of missed the lap at the end of the day, because we got the chequered flag when I was on my out lap. So that was a bit annoying because I feel like we're really speedy. But yeah, time to go racing."
Jaxon Evans
Supercars driver, #12 SCT Motorsport Camaro
Really cool to get back in the Supercar after like four months, three or four off. Obviously, first time I've driven it since I had a big accident. So nice to know that everything's comfy and feels fine. A pretty big test program running through a bunch of different things with the crew, new tyres for this year. So it was nice to get some laps on them. Felt like we're kind of relearning what we need pressure wise and setup wise to make it fast. So in the end, the day probably ended up pretty solid with most of the cars speedy. So, thanks to my crew for working tirelessly and hopefully we can use some good momentum going forward into the weekend and have a strong weekend. Bit weird having a day off now, but we'll rest and recover and come back for the weekend and see how we go.