Macauley Jones scores top-ten finish in frantic Supercars Race 7 in Melbourne

Macauley Jones secured a top-ten finish for Brad Jones Racing in their 800th Supercars race, capping off a dramatic weekend of racing.

The race began in chaotic fashion, with a Safety Car deployed on Lap 1 following a major first-corner incident that left several cars damaged.

The Brad Jones Racing entries escaped largely unscathed, although Andre Heimgartner copped a bent steering arm in the R&J Batteries GR Supra after making contact while attempting to avoid the crash.

Jones’ AlphaTheta GR Supra showed strong pace following the restart, running comfortably inside the top ten as the race settled into rhythm.

Running as high as eighth, Jones fought hard in the closing laps as the car’s pace fell away,, eventually crossing the line in 10th.

Team-mate Cameron Hill also benefited from the Turn 1 incident, gaining several positions early and running 11th late in the race.

However, contact at the final corner shuffled him back to 13th by the chequered flag.

Heimgartner recovered well after his early setback.

Having fallen as low as 19th during the race, he capitalised on further incidents throughout the field to climb back to 15th by the finish.

Brad Jones Racing now turns its attention to the upcoming New Zealand double-header next month, beginning with the Taupō Super440 (10–12 April) followed by the Christchurch Super440 (17–19 April).

CORRECTION TO RACE 6 RESULTS:

Late on Saturday (7/3), Supercars issued Cameron Hill a 15 second penalty for an incident in Race 6. The penalty means that Hill dropped out of the top ten, however it promoted team-mate Macauley Jones into the ten.

Race 6 results
Andre Heimgartner - 8
Macauley Jones - 10
Cameron Hill - 17

QUOTEBOARD

SUPERCARS

Andre Heimgartner, #800 R&J Batteries Toyota GR Supra

“Interesting day, obviously lots of carnage. Again, we made some setup changes and feel like we’ve come away with some good direction from this weekend so that was positive. Managed to stay out of most of the carnage on track but did get some damage unfortunately which hurt us for the rest of the race. Managed to finish the race but a bit disappointing as a whole over the weekend, obviously you always want to go better. But, for a weekend that’s always full of drama, we managed to stay out of most of it which is the good part.”

Cameron Hill, #14 Dare Racing Toyota GR Supra

“Pretty entertaining day here on Sunday for the Melbourne SuperSprint. Managed to survive the first lap shenanigans and move up from 19th to 13th so not a bad outcome considering where we started. I think on the whole, we’ve definitely had some good learnings this weekend and I really think we can build on this. We’ve got a bit of time now before we go across to New Zealand so we’ll put our heads down, work with the guys in the workshop and come out swinging. Thanks for Dare for all their support this weekend. It was great to see some of their guys out here at the track.”

Macauley Jones, #96 AlphaTheta Racing Toyota GR Supra

“Had a good start in that race. There was a bit of carnage in turn 1 but I feel like the race balance was pretty good today. I feel like we’ve improved it over the weekend which is really good for us. We learnt a fair bit and finished 10th which was a really solid result in the end. So definitely some good takeaways from the weekend. We’ve got a bit of time before we go racing next in Taupo which is a very different circuit. So hopefully we can take some stuff that we’ve learnt this weekend but it’ll be nice for the guys to have a break and really settle in again.”