Friday pace a positive sign for BJR team at Townsville

Brad Jones Racing has made the most of the two 40 minute practice sessions on the opening day at the Townsville 500.

All four of the BJR entries have made gains at the Reid Park Circuit, with Andre Heimgartner and Bryce Fullwood in the top ten in both sessions with the team heading in a new direction.

Opting to minimise tyre-use and only run one set in Practice 1, BJR’s cars were circulating on rather long race runs.

Andre Heimgartner in the R&J Batteries was 6th fastest in both sessions and was happy with the philosophy the team are working towards.

Bryce Fullwood, who completed the most amount of laps in the first practice admits he was still trying to fit to the driving style of the car set-up.

Fullwood believes there is more left in the Middy’s Racing Camaro ahead of qualifying and tomorrow’s race.

It’s a similar story for Macauley Jones in the Pizza Hut Racing entry, who is having to adapt to the car but believes our race pace will be quite strong.

Globetrotter, Jaxon Evans had his first laps of the Townsville street circuit.

The SCT Logistics driver came straight from the Spa 24 Hour in a GT car to jump into a Supercar on one of the most brutal tracks on the calendar.

The Kiwi driver is happy with the progress he made over the day in those conditions.

Supercars are back on track at 10:15am tomorrow for qualifying for the 250km race.

Super 2
It was a day of learning for the BJR Super2 rookies here in Townsville.

Cody Gillis found his feet quickly after coming to grips with the circuit finishing the second session inside the top 10 in the #9 Tropic Petroleum Commodore.

Team-mate Elliott Cleary also logged his first laps of the Reid Park Circuit however, on his green tyre run in the latter practice session, he found some traffic and was not able to get a clean lap.

The duo are back on track at at 9:40am tomorrow for qualifying.

Supercars Quoteboard

Andre Heimgartner
 Supercars driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"It was a good day at the track, it was a little bit overcast and a bit cold, bit different for Townsville. Normally it's hot and sweaty, so interesting. But as far as on track we had a solid day. Very different philosophy we're trying at the moment. So I think it was positive and we'll just see how we can sort of drive that for tomorrow for qualifying, it requires a bit of a different style. So we'll see if we can eek out a bit more speed for tomorrow."

Bryce Fullwood
Supercars driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Good day today. We came into this weekend really having a swing with the cars. No secret last couple rounds have been little bit tough for us, so we've really had to swing. The engineers have done a really good job, there's a bit of speed in the cars. It's very different from what we've been used to and the way they make speed is very different. I'm still getting my head around it but we finished nighth there today and didn't quite get the best of our green tyre lap there and I made a mistake and there's more time in the car. So yeah, all really happy so far. Really odd conditions for Townsville - really, really windy, pretty cold and very overcast, so it's gonna be interesting to see what the rest of the weekend has in store but all smiles so far."

Macauley Jones
Supercars driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"I'm happy with the day. I feel like it's going okay. I feel like the set-up direction that we've gone with after the last couple of rounds we're finding the right direction. It's just fine tuning it and adapting the driving style to make it work with this different sort of set-up. I think the race running spec in Practice 1 was good for the whole team which is solid. It's just working it out for the qualifying lap which is so tight as we've seen the last few races so yeah, fingers crossed. We'll see what we've got in qualifying but I think it's a good start on the first day and we learned a fair bit which is always a good sign."

Jaxon Evans
Supercars driver, #12 SCT Logistics Camaro
"A learning day, my first time on the streets of Townsville, so pretty exciting to turn my first laps here. Obviously a bit of a baptism of fire coming from GT cars to a V8 Supercar on a street circuit. So lots of learning done but happy with the progress. Made a little mistake in Practice 2 there so probably not representative of our proper pace but confident that we can do a bit of research and dig into some data overnight and hopefully come out swinging in qualifying tomorrow."

Super2 Quoteboard

Elliott Cleary
Super2 driver, #19 ZB Commodore
"Today was a pretty solid day. Practice 1, obviously never been here just learned the track, got to grips with everything. And then second practice, on the old tyres I thought we were really strong, we were inside the 10. And then on the new tyre, got held up a little bit, didn't quite put it all together but I think we're in a pretty good window so hopefully we can qualify towards the pointy end tomorrow morning."

Cody Gillis
Super2 driver, #9 ZB Commodore
"An okay first day in Townsville. A little bit daunting to start with. I think we struggled a little bit in the first session just fresh to the track and tyre life. We sort of got it sorted for the second session and ended up P8. Not far off. So yeah, good day and we see how we go in quali tomorrow."