Heimgartner makes moves to finish in top ten in Adelaide

Andre Heimgartner salvaged Brad Jones Racing’s day in Adelaide, moving forward into the top 10.

Yesterday’s qualifying set-up for a difficult Race 27, but both Heimgartner and Macauley Jones made moves through the 250km race in an incredibly recovery effort. 

Heimgartner put seven positions between his finishing position of 9th and his grid slot of 17th.

The top ten finish was crucial for the team who are fighting for third in the Teams’ Championship now with one race to go.

Jones in the Pizza Hut Racing Camaro had pace in hand during his first two stints, however he suffered a small issue around his second pit stop.

 That meant he wasn’t able to take advantage in the last portion of the race but the #96 Camaro made up six positions and took the chequered flag in 17th.

Bryce Fullwood in the Middy’s Electrical entry unfortunately was hampered at the race start by a roll bar issue.

The crew fixed it during his first stop on Lap 17, but the stop ran long and put him back in the field for the rest of the race. 

Fullwood crossed the finish line in 19th. 

Jack Smith in the SCT Logistics car had a clean run to his final pit stop, where an error saw a used rear tyre fitted to his car.

Smith was able to manage the very old tyre to come home in 20th.

The final race of the season will seal positions in the Teams’ and Drivers’ Championships with Heimgartner and Fullwood both fighting for spots inside the top ten.

Qualifying kicks off the action in Adelaide tomorrow at 10:15 ACDT.

Super2

Lochie Dalton in the AWC Commodore had momentum on his side in the opening Super2 race of the weekend.

The rookie made his way past a number of cars, and caught some luck but finished a great sixth from 12th on the grid.
Dalton will hope to keep his pace up for tomorrow’s race, starting from 17th (13:20 ACDT).

Supercars Quoteboard

Andre Heimgartner
Supercars Driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"A bit of action in that race. Had really good pace in the stints but those Mustangs are fast through Tun 8 which made it very hard to pass them even though we had a little bit of a tyre advantage. So a really good race considering we started 17th and hopefully tomorrow if we can qualify a little better I think our race pace will help us."

Bryce Fullwood
Supercars Driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Really rough day here for us today. I thought we made some improvements from the practice this morning. And I think we ended that one 11th which was, which was good. But we knew it was going to be a tough race starting as far back as we were, and unfortunately had a couple of gremlins early in the first stint that we had to come in and rectify, we lost a bit of time getting that sorted. Unfortunately, we just lost too much time and that was our race done. I don't feel like the car was actually too bad in the last stint I felt like the speed wasn't too bad, but for sure, this weekend, the car is just not reacting like their usual selves and we've got a lot of work to do. We're not really sure what is going on. We're working  pretty hard, so hopefully we can find something for tomorrow."

Jack Smith
Supercars Driver, #4 SCT Logistics Camaro
"Made some good gains in practice three one lap speed, which was reassuring. So a lot of work to do but was better in qualifying (setup) which was nice. Race wise was a real battle just didn't have the speed but currently trying to get to the bottom of why. Unfortunately have the same tyre put back on in the second pitstop and had to do 55 laps on the left rear which made that last stint really difficult. We still didn't really have the speed we needed so we just got to work out why and race better tomorrow."

Macauley Jones
Supercars Driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Up and down day - practice was pretty bad. We took a very large swing at setup just to try and get a bit more quali speed out of the cars, which is probably our main focus for improving at the moment. But race pace is really solid. Moved forward in the race which was good and we had some good speed in the first couple of stints. Some good racing ran green for a very long time. Almost the whole time. It's pretty hard work out there. The car is really humid actually, there's not a whole lot of airflow. That was challenging, but always a good time around Adelaide."

Super2 Quoteboard

Lochie Dalton
Super2 driver, #43 AWC ZB Commodore
"Our car was pretty strong throughout the race. We had a fast car towards the end and we picked a few cars off and managed to get lucky with a few cars being involved in incidents."