Brad Jones Racing looking to build on Thursday lessons at Australian Grand Prix
A jam-packed Thursday at the Australian Grand Prix for the Supercars Championship has delivered some important learnings for the Brad Jones Racing team.
With four sessions, including a race on the opening day of on-track activity, BJR now has a solid base to build from heading into the remaining three races of the weekend.
The short and sharp qualifying sessions saw Andre Heimgartner qualify just outside the top ten for Race 4 earlier today.
The opening laps were aggressive, with Heimgartner getting pushed around in the pack and dropping back several positions.
A Safety Car on Lap 6 neutralised the field, and Heimgartner ultimately held on to 14th in what became a time-certain race.
Cameron Hill, in the Dare Racing GR Supra, spent much of the day chasing improved car balance, something the team will continue to work on overnight.
However, Hill secured a strong starting position of 12th for tomorrow evening’s Race 5 after a great lap in the corresponding qualifying session.
The AlphaTheta GR Supra also proved a little tricky to balance, with driver Macauley Jones working closely with his engineers throughout the day to make improvements.
Unfortunately, Jones was unable to take part in the Race 4 qualifying session due to an issue and started from the final row of the grid.
He made up several positions in the opening laps before the Safety Car. The team elected to bring him into pit lane for fresh tyres, but Jones was unable to make further progress after the restart due to heavy traffic ahead.
The team now has until 5:30pm AEDT tomorrow to review the day’s learnings and prepare for Race 5.
QUOTEBOARD
SUPERCARS
Andre Heimgartner, #8 R&J Batteries Toyota GR Supra
“Not the worst day. Just played around with setup and obviously different track, different car, stuff like that, so they didn't quite hit the sweet spot. But it was solid enough. Learnt a lot in the race, tried a different setup to what it normally would be but have some good references to go off and some good data for tomorrow. We'll try a different tactic tomorrow and see if we make some progress.”
Cameron Hill, #14 Dare Racing Toyota GR Supra
“It was a pretty intense day as it always is, on the Thursday at the Grand Prix. I felt like we had a decent car in practice. I made a bit of a mistake in the first qualifying session unfortunately, which put us down in 19th. Felt like I did a better job in the second qualifying with 12th. We tried something for the race and it probably wasn't the right thing to try so we struggled for pace a little bit but, it's good to know now because we can make the car better for tomorrow.”
Macauley Jones, #96 AlphaTheta Racing Toyota GR Supra
“My day was a bit questionable. Had some issues in qualifying, which is disappointing. Obviously not getting a whole lot of a running in quali didn't help. Really struggling with the balance during the race. I feel like I just couldn't really get my head around it. A bit of work to be done there. I think that we’re always learning something new.”