Challenging Saturday in Townsville for BJR
Challenging Saturday in Townsville for BJR
Brad Jones Racing has had a tough day on the streets of Townsville, but there are positives to take from the cars’ qualifying speed.
Bryce Fullwood in the Mr Umami Racing Camaro was comfortably inside the top ten in qualifying, making his way to the Shootout as the fifth fastest driver.
Fullwood did the Shootout on used tyres, to help set up his Sunday and locked in 10th.
He finished Race 21 in 11th after a rather disrupted 70-lap event, with multiple Safety Cars and a lock-up fairly early in his stint.
Andre Heimgartner started from 14th on the grid and immediately made his way forward, even jumping Fullwood when the lights went out.
While that was neutralised under the first Safety Car, Heimgartner in the R&J Batteries machine had a battle on his hands when racing went green again.
Heimgartner made an ill-fated move on the car in front, which earnt him a 15-second penalty - destroying his race.
He was able to finish 16th.
Just behind him at the flag was team-mate Macauley Jones in the Pizza Hut Racing car.
Jones has been chasing car balance for the last two days and had a challenging qualifying session that saw him start 19th.
He was able to miss a bit of the initial carnage at the start and had a mostly clean race and came home 17th.
Jaxon Evans had a day to forget, the SCT Motorsport Camaro just missed the cutoff in qualifying 1 which put him in the thick of the action on lap 1.
Evans was caught in the middle of someone else's incident and sustained heavy damage to the front left corner.
He came to the garage and while the crew were able to fix it and send him back out for a few laps, he was eventually retired.
It’s been a tough string of races for the Kiwi but tomorrow is a new day.
The field resets tomorrow for the final 200km race, with Supercars Qualifying at 10:05am AEST.
Super2
A tough first race of the weekend for the Super2 team.
After a difficult qualifying session following a red flag, Brad lined himself up in 9th with Cody in 18th to start the race.
The race proved to be a challenge with Brad locking all four wheels in the early stages of the race.
He managed to hold on to the set of tyres before being forced to pit for fresh rubber.
The South Australian driver crossed the line in 20th.
Across the garage, the race was also not smooth sailing for Cody Gillis.
While trying to make a move down the inside of the driver ahead, the #9 Tropic Petroleum ZB Commodore driver didn’t quite execute it and found a tyre bundle.
He was able to continue and finished in 21st.
There’s one final race left for the duo to hopefully turn their weekend around with Qualifying for Race 2 kicking off at 09:30 AEST.
SUPERCARS RESULTS
Qualifying Race 21
5- Bryce Fullwood, #14 Mr Umami Racing Camaro
14 - Andre Heimgartner, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
18 - Macauley Jones, #96 Pizza Hut Racing Camaro
19 - Jaxon Evans, #12 SCT Motorsport Camaro
Top Ten Shootout
10 - Bryce Fullwood, #14 Mr Umami Racing Camaro
Race 21
11 - Bryce Fullwood, #14 Mr Umami Racing Camaro
16 - Andre Heimgartner, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
17 - Macauley Jones, #96 Pizza Hut Racing Camaro
DNF - Jaxon Evans, #12 SCT Motorsport Camaro
SUPERCARS QUOTEBOARD
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"I had potential today, bit disappointing how it ended. Just got caught up in some drama and turned around Cam Hill. So not ideal, got a penalty. That sort of sucks, but overall, good speed and could have been a lot better. We'll just push on for tomorrow and see if we can make something of it."
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars driver, #14 Mr Umami Racing Camaro
“Day two at Townsville. A strong day here for us today. We qualified fifth and got into the shootout and then we elected to save some tyres for tomorrow. We're all pretty tight on tyres here this weekend so started the race in 10th. Got a very average start and kind of got fairly boxed and bounced in the first lap. Ended up probably back around 17th, and then was able to slowly come back forward again. Unfortunately sustained some damage on the car from lap one from getting bounced around which kind of knocked the performance of the car around a bit. But I still think the car is pretty good and to come back to 11th, I'm pretty happy with that so looking forward to see what we can do tomorrow.”
Macauley Jones
Supercars driver, #96 Pizza Hut Racing Camaro
"Really struggled with the balance of the car today. Really struggled to balance the car today. We just can't seem to get in its window. We'll look at all the data and work really hard at getting a better race car tonight. In qualifying this morning I thought it was pretty good, but we changed the balance in between qualifying sessions and made the car too pushy. So we're just gonna have to work a little bit harder tomorrow."
Jaxon Evans
Supercars driver, #12 SCT Motorsport Camaro
“It’s hard to believe that we’ve ended another day like this. Again, thank you to the crew for their efforts, they’ve proved time and time again how amazing they are at what they do. Here’s to hoping we have a better day tomorrow.”
SUPER2 RESULTS
Qualifying Race 1
9 - Brad Vaughan #80, Dormer HVAC ZB Commodore
18 - Cody Gillis, #9 Tropic Petroleum ZB Commodore
Race 1
20 - Brad Vaughan #80, Dormer HVAC ZB Commodore
21 - Cody Gillis, #9 Tropic Petroleum ZB Commodore
SUPER2 QUOTEBOARD
Cody Gillis
Super2 driver, #9 TropicPetroleum ZB Commodore
“Very tough day today. We definitely need to make some changes and turn this around overnight. Hopefully find some speed and we’ll go again for one more tomorrow.”
Brad Vaughan
Super2 driver, #80 Dormer HVAC ZB Commodore
“Had good pace during the race, making our way through and gaining some positions after qualifying ninth. Unfortunately, had a lock-up which caught me off guard and destroyed the tyre and ultimately ended our race. We’ll reset and go again tomorrow.”