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Drivers' Quoteboard: Race 24

28 Jul 2013
See what some of the drivers had to say at the end of the final day at the Coates Hire Ipswich 360.
11 mins by James Pavey
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Chaz Mostert, Wilson Security DJR, p1: 

“I’ll pinch myself in the morning and make sure it wasn’t all a dream.

“The clutch grabbed and and I got back out of it, and lucky enough when I grabbed it again it released the break and Will was on the dirty line with a bit of wet on the inside.

“I didn’t think I was going to keep the lead for the first lap, I thought he was going to be coming pretty quick, so I was pretty lucky.

“DJR has had a couple of bad years to get a win with those guys is a real pat on all their backs. For me I don’t really know what I am feeling, I’ll probably wake up tomorrow morning and wish it was tonight, still feeling as happy as I am now.

“This is what you strive for as a young fellow in go karts, and you think about getting to the top of the league and verse the best guys in the country…

“I was looking behind Scotty (McLaughlin) to see how much of a gap he had so I could figure where I could slot in somewhere. He was coming like a bullet and it is a real credit to his team, but just bad luck with the tyre.

“It is like Dunlop Series again and it is really good that we both have a main game seat and we can go head to head again.

“I thought I was done for when I had 17 laps to go and the tyres was starting to go away in the rear and he was very consistent and he has come a long way in the last couple of years and it is a real credit to race against him in the main series.”

Will Davison, Pepsi Max Crew FPR, p2: 

“I’ve got mixed emotions. Obviously pole was great and the last race was a massive improvement but I am a little surprised by the lack of speed in the first half of the race. That aside, it was a big improvement over the earlier race and we got a good result so it was a solid if not unspectacular race for me. Obviously all the crew are really happy and it is great that we’ve had all four of our cars up front across the weekend.” 

Mark Winterbottom, Pepsi Max Crew FPR, p3:

“I was happy with my car in qualifying for the first race but a brake issue made things a bit hard and I had to start back in the pack which made things tough. In the second race we made the same change as Will did and it paid off but overall I think we maybe didn’t take the best overall direction with set-up across the weekend. We made the most in the final race and we got another solid result. It was great to see the young guys come through today and show us middle-aged drivers how it’s done. Obviously congratulations to Chaz and his engineer Adam on a great effort. To have a 1-2-3-4 is an amazing result no matter where we all finished and the team did a fantastic job all round.”

David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing, p4:

“It wasn’t a bad day and the whole team had a good weekend with strong pace and some good results. Once again I ruined a tyre early on when I locked up on the oil down at turn three. From there I was in damage control so I am a bit disappointed in myself as the car had pace but a ruined tyre hampered me. I did the same thing in race one earlier so we’ll need to go back and have a look at things.”

Craig Lowndes, Red Bull Racing Australia, p6:

“We fixed the back of the car overnight but we struggled with understeer to get a run on anyone at turns one and two which meant I couldn’t quite attack.

“We were strong under brakes and drive, so the weekend was a little disappointing in the respect we couldn’t quite capitalise. I didn’t quite get the best out of the car in qualifying and from there it’s pretty hard to make up too much ground with the field so close together.”

Tim Slade, Heavy Haulage Australia Racing, p8:

“After yesterday I was pretty confident we would have a decent car again for qualifying and we did because we qualified in 10th and fourth. It’s the highest qualifying position for an Erebus car this year and our previous best was sixth which we achieved in Darwin.

“After qualifying I wasn’t that confident going into the race based on how we went yesterday and we did struggle a bit in that first race today.

“Then Wes my engineer and I had a few ideas on what we could do with the car for the second race, and we had to decide between changing some little things or making a big change.  So we decided to go for it and try to learn something new.

“The car was really, really good in the last race and it was enjoyable to drive. It’s the most enjoyable race I’ve had in the car this year because it actually was so good.

“I just made a mistake there in the opening laps.  I feel sorry for everyone in the team and although we got a really good result, there was a chance that it could have been even better.

“A big thanks to all the guys on the team for their continued effort and I think we learnt a lot of valuable things today that we can take into the rest of the year.”

Jack Daniel’s Racing, Todd Kelly, p10: 

"I qualified a lot better for the last race, starting 15th, but again there was some really average driving out there and I went back to the mid-20s early on in the race, guys were just running me straight off the track on exits.

"I had to really use the car quite hard to get those positions back in the first third of the race and I was probably a little bit too aggressive and had a bit too much wheel spin, which didn't leave me much for the end of the race.

"Every time I had clear track the car was extremely fast, so it's a shame we couldn't convert that into a better result because the car was certainly capable of it."

Shane van Gisbergen, Team TEKNO V.I.P. Petfoods, p11:

“We were just slow. I felt like I spent the day with my hand out the window waving people through. We had no car speed at all. We were just too slow. I don’t really know what the issue is, the car felt fine, we were just slow.”

James Moffat, Norton Hornets, p12:

“We had a reasonably good day yesterday, but today was pretty average, and to be fair, we only finished where we did because of other’s failures.

“We need to go back and have a look at why we lost some competitiveness. We clearly didn’t do a good enough job.

“On paper, Winton should be our best circuit, but we haven‘t tested there since we first had the car. All we can do is go up there, test well and come away with a package that is an improvement of where we have been.”

Tony D’Alberto, Team HIFLEX, p13:

“Not a great weekend for the team. Chipped away all weekend and did improve but for whatever reason we couldn’t find the sweet spot in the car. The second race on Sunday was probably our best out of the three, but the car still wasn’t great then either.

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“Considering the pace of the other Walkinshaw cars; we weren’t far away, if not, we were quicker than them at times.

“Really looking forward to the Winton360 in a months’ time now. We will go back home and regroup for what will hopefully be a round where we can turn things around. We use Winton as our test-track so we do have a lot of knowledge there and that might give us the upper-hand.”

Jonathon Webb, Team TEKNO Darrell Lea, p14:

“It doesn’t seem to be getting much better at the moment. Obviously Townsville wasn’t where we wanted to be, and we worked pretty hard to turn it around this weekend, but it wasn’t to be. At the end of the day, we finished better than where we started, and gradually went forward, but we just had no car speed. Thankfully today we didn’t have any issues, stayed on the track and made up some positions that way.”

Michael Caruso, Norton Hornets, p16: 

“It was a tough weekend. We need to go home and re-evaluate what’s going on.

“There was speed with some of our cars during stages of the weekend, so we need to assess why we didn’t have that in qualifying.

“It was good to move from 28th up to 16th. There were a few positives there, but really, I just want to think about Winton now. It’s the team’s test track, we’ve got a test day coming up before the meeting, so all our focus needs to be placed on improving our results there.”

Maro Engel, SP Tools Racing, p17:

“We had some promising practice race results this weekend, but unfortunately we couldn’t transfer that into qualifying and race pace.

“I feel we learnt a lot this weekend which we will hopefully put to good use in the coming rounds.” 

Lee Holdsworth, IRWIN Racing, p18:

“In the last race today we finally got the monkey off our backs and we finished a race – it was nice to finish a race.

“We had some decent speed but with this being our test track we wanted to get good points here and get some good results. That unfortunately didn’t happen.

“This is the first race I have finished in the last five so hopefully we’ll be seeing the chequered flag a lot more between now and the end of the year.

“I want no more DNFs and I want to start moving forward.  We need to find more pace in qualifying because that’s where it all starts and you set your weekend up.”

Scott McLaughlin, Fujitsu Racing GRM, p20 (winner Race 23):

“With a top 15 I would have been satisfied, I would have been stoked but obviously our pace has been awesome this year and I’ve have a great car and I have been able to prove what a great car we have and prove to everyone what I can do. It’s been great.

“Today trying to hold of Whincup at the start and at the end, when he was coming at me – it was pretty cool, you know you work towards your whole life and you get that opportunity you need to grab it and I think that’s what Chaz and I have been doing in the last few races.

“I pinched a wheel on the wet line. I didn’t think it was too bad, there was a little vibration and then it got worse and worse and I just kept pushing on but I knew it was coming. Our car was awesome and we set the fastest lap of the race.”

Alex Davison, Team JELD-WEN, p22:

“It is so frustrating that we were on for a potential top three or four finish and an issue which we have no control over happens and takes that away. On a positive note it was good we were running up the front and in contention. I had a strong performance Saturday and two good qualifying runs today so we are starting to create some momentum. We now just need a little bit of luck. We did most things well this weekend and made no major mistakes and deserve a top four result so we will just keep doing what we are doing.”

Jamie Whincup, Red Bull Racing Australia, p25:

“The car was good today but just not quite good enough – and we just didn’t have the luck in race three.

“Qualifying was ordinary for race three but that was my fault. And from there, well, it wasn’t the greatest finish to the weekend. We were pretty happy up until then. We came away with some good points but it would have been nice to get some more points from race three.

“We did some good things today but we just didn’t quite get the most out of it.”

 Tim Blanchard, Wilson Security DJR, DNF: 

“In the first race we had the car probably the best all weekend. I had a great dice with the Nissans and was able to pull away and get into the Top 20. We got as high as 17th but dropped a few as some guys who had stopped for new tyres got past. The final race was very short for the #17 DJR Falcon. My race was really over before it started. The gearbox locked up on the run down to Turn 3 and that was that. It was a great day for the team however with Chaz taking out the win.”

From the teams:

Bruce Jenkins, TEKNO Team Manager:

“It’s been a really frustrating weekend. We’ve shown some pace at times, but there is some investigating to do when we get back to the factory to find out where we lost our speed from the last weekend. We’ve gone from being quite strong to a mediocre weekend, and there has to be a reason why. We’ll explore that, and we’ll bounce back at Winton.”

Tim Edwards, FPR Team Principal: 

“Today was one of the really proud moments during my time in motorsport. For our team as a whole it was a brilliant day, but Chaz’s win was truly special. We first got serious about him at this very venue two years ago so to see him come full circle during that time is very rewarding for all of us involved both at our team, for his family and his new family at DJR. Will, Frosty, Dave and Alex all drove extremely well in difficult conditions and it is a major result for Ford to have four of its cars claim the top four places in the race. We will enjoy this win and it shows we are coming into form just in time for the Endurance Cup.”

Al D'Alberto, Team HIFLEX team owner: 

“It wasn’t the weekend we were hoping for, but we collected points and we have a straight car.

“We just didn’t have the speed we were expecting so we’ll go home and have a look at what went right and what went wrong.

“Winton is the next round and we can’t wait to get to our home track.”

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