MELBOURNE 400
DAY ONE - Practice & Qualifying (Race 6 & 7)
Bryce Fullwood put it best for Team BJR after the first day on track for the Melbourne 400 at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.
“The new layout is super-fast and really awesome to drive. The time sheet was all over the place all day with people trying to learn the new circuit but we’re all really looking forward to going racing!”
Practice was a mixed bag with the team getting to grips with car set up on the new look circuit. The revised layout has removed the former turn 9/10 chicane complex and other corners have been widened, shortening the lap length by 24m to 5.279km.
As such no lap records existed for the circuit prior to today and teams were going into day one on a relatively equal footing with little data to draw from.
Practice one saw Tools.com Racing’s Macauley Jones finish the session in P5 with the R&J Batteries entry of Andre Heimgartner 6th, Middy’s Racing’s Bryce Fullwood in 10th and SCT Logistics Racing’s Jack Smith in 17th.
Practice two saw the teams trying differing set ups, pushing them further down the field with Fullwood 11th, Heimgartner 16th, Jones 19th and Smith 24th.
The first qualifying session of the day was red-flagged early after a heavy crash involving Jake Kostecki at Turn 5, leaving Jones to qualify in 8th position – his equal best Supercars qualifying result. Unfortunately, teammates Heimgartner, Fullwood and Smith had yet to hit flying laps and posted times to position themselves in P18, 19 and 20th respectively.
Race 7 qualifying run the full course with Smith leading the BJR charge home in 16th, with Fullwood (17th), Heimgartner (18th) and Jones (19th) locking out the grid positions around him.
Smith said by the end of the second qualifying session of the day the car had started to feel more comfortable on the new look Albert Park circuit and he was looking forward to Race 8 and 9 qualifying tomorrow.
Jones’ run had been impacted by a curb strike in the second qualifying session, otherwise he may have been placed for a top 10 grid position in both qualifying sessions.
DAY TWO - Qualifying (Race 8 & 9) and Race 6
Macauley Jones has recorded a Supercars career-best 6th place for a single driver event in Race 6 of the Repco Australian Supercars Championship at Albert Park today.
The race was the first of four scheduled for this weekend for the Melbourne 400 at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.
The field was almost perfectly split in terms of tyre strategy for the opening 20-lap race, with 13 cars starting on the soft tyre and 12 on the hard.
The BJR drivers were also evenly split, with Smith starting on hards, Jones on softs, Fullwood on softs and Heimgartner on hards.
Smith pitted on lap two in the SCT Logistics Racing #4 car to switch to the soft tyre, but it was quickly evident the softer compound was wearing fast on the freshly resurfaced Albert Park track.
Team Owner Brad Jones said Smith had to be commended for an awesome drive, completing more laps on the soft compound than any other car in the field while somehow maintaining track position to come home in 13th.
As drama unfolded around them, Jones capitalised on his good start in the tools.com Racing #96 car from eighth position on the grid while Fullwood’s Middy’s Racing pink rocket finished a solid 10th.
Heimgartner’s race wasn’t just about tyres however as he was hit with a sticking throttle throughout the 20-lap race but put in another great drive to nurse the R&J Batteries Racing car to the finish line in 15th position.
Jones said he was encouraged by the strong performance of the team and saw it as evidence that the team could be up the pointy end.
“Obviously our qualifying performance for the remaining races this weekend wasn’t quite as strong as it was for race 6 so we will have to wait and see how things unfold but certainly we have more of an idea now of what we need to be doing and how the cars are performing over 20 laps on this circuit so we’re looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”
DAY THREE - Race 7 & 8
A scrappy race kicked off proceedings at Albert Park on Saturday for Race 7 of the Supercars Championship in the Melbourne 400 at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.
BJR lined up in 16th (Smith), 17th (Fullwood), 18th (Heimgartner) and 19th (Jones) on the grid and all drivers made good starts until Smith received contact from Lee Holdsworth on lap one resulting in a front left hand tyre failure.
Smith pitted to change from the soft compound tyre to hards, pushing him into 25th position.
Heimgartner then became the only retirement in the race following a clash with Will Brown which sent the R&J Batteries car into the concrete between Turns 13 and 14.
Heimgartner was less than thrilled with the incident, slamming some of the driving standards of the past days. He was also the victim of another incident in Race 6 on Friday.
“(Yesterday) I got smashed in the back and it pushed me into Le Brocq and it ruined both our races.
“Then that one, I got fed into the fence. (I’m) pretty pissed off. These young guys, they’re driving way too hard and smashing into each other.
"A bit of contact here and there is alright, but plain putting someone into the fence is ridiculous."
Smith attempted to capitalise on the safety car sent out to retrieve the R&J Batteries car, pitting to put soft tyres back on the SCT Logistics racing car.
The move saw Smith move up to 17th position by the last lap of the race before having to avoid Nick Percat who was re-joining the track following an off at the last corner – pushing him to 21st place.
By contrast, the Middy’s Racing rocket of Bryce Fullwood and tools.com Racing’s Macauley Jones ran relatively unscathed escaping the chaos of the midfield but for an altercation between Jones and De Pasquale in the dying stages. The pair went on to finish 12th and 13th respectively.
The penultimate race of the weekend started much the way Race 7 concluded.
Jones received contact in turn one of the first lap resulting in a bent steering arm. The tools.com car attempted to stay on track, but track position had already been lost.
Heimgartner’s pitstop was then slowed by a cross-threaded wheel nut and Fullwood struggled with grip which also caused him to drop down the field.
Smith stayed out on the hard compound tyres while others pitted, climbing up the order until his pitstop with 7 laps to go put him back into 24th position. Re-joining the race with a lighter full load and fresh softs he set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:46.0881 and finished in 21st.
Heimgartner’s second race of the day was thankfully less eventful than the morning, finishing in 18th. Fullwood rounded out the day in 22nd and Jones in 23rd in what was a tough day for team BJR. “We managed to stay out of the carnage in race seven and finish 10th (but) we struggled a bit in race eight and need to do some homework tonight,” Fullwood said.
DAY FOUR
Friday’s Race six showed the team can do some great things when everything comes together and heading into the rest of the weekend at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix the team was in great spirits.
Unfortunately, some more “wrong time, wrong place” moments, car failures and challenges with pace set the scene for the remainder of the Melbourne 400.
Sunday’s final race saw the following line up Andre Heimgartner (P16), Macauley Jones (P18), Bryce Fullwood (P21) and Jack Smith (P24) on the starting grid.
For Smith that’s as far as the SCT Logistics #4 got with a driveshaft failure on the race start prompting a safety car on lap one.
Jones had an early excursion off the track while Heimgartner clawed his way up the midfield early on only to have a tyre delaminate on the last lap.
Fullwood also again struggled for pace in the Middy’s Racing #14 car, particularly on the hard compound tyres.
“It was a tough weekend but one that really started out with a lot of promise with the result on Friday,” team boss Brad Jones said.
“We’ve shown with the consistency and strategy we can be up there and obviously I’m proud of Macca and all the guys for that race on Friday but also the attitude they’ve carried with them across the whole weekend.
“We know we can be up there fighting; we just have to work to get a few more things right so it’s back home now to regroup and looking forward to getting back to Perth at the end of the month.”
