BJR Car Of The Future Gets Maiden Run

BRAD JONESRACING’s first Car of the Future (COTF) Chassis completed has completed asuccessful 60-km shakedown today, with Fabian Coulthard behind the wheel.

The Team BOC-liveriedVE Commodore is the first of three cars under construction at BJR’s Albury workshopto take to the track, successfully completing its run at the brand-new 1.6kmMotorsport Training Australia circuit near Wodonga and not far from the team’s base.

Brad Jones Racing Team Manager Chris Clarksaid the day achieved all of the goals set by the team.

“We had a fewlittle niggly problems in the morning, which is the reason you do a shakedown.We sorted through them pretty quickly,” he told V8Supercars.com.au.

“We’re onlyallowed 60 kilometres for the shakedown, which isn’t too much, but it’s enoughto iron out some little problems, do a systems check and get the engineergetting used to the MOTEC systems.

“We’ve beenrunning PI systems for the last six years, so it’s a new way of operating.”

Clark wasquick to heap praise on his team, who have worked with minimal time off overthe Christmas – New Year break to assemble the car and get it to the point oftoday’s shakedown.

“The guys didan absolutely fantastic job of assembling the car and putting the packagetogether. It’s been a bit of a mission and everyone has been working reallyhard over the break and they’ve done an amazing job. It’s a credit to them all.

“As you wouldexpect, Fabian did a great job of punting the thing around with no dramas.”

The team alsopraised the MTA circuit near Wodonga, the brand-new facility offering the onlyV8 Supercar team not based in major centres like Melbourne, Brisbane or theGold Coast a handy facility within a short drive from the factory.  

“It’s 1.6kmand it does the trick,” Clark says.

“It needs abit more work – they had a budget to build as much as they could and thingslike kerbs and gravel traps will go in later – but for what we were trying toachieve today, which was to make sure things like the sensors are workingproperly and the thing is not going to give us any problems when we test Tuesday,it was perfect.”

Brad JonesRacing will complete their first full COTF test at Winton on January 15th,with both Jason Bright and Fabian Coulthard doing driving duties.

Stay tuned to V8Supercars.com.au tomorrow as we check in with BJR on the progress of their second and third COTF Chassis!

Image: Chis Clarke Instagram / Twitter (@2uChina)