'Alice the Snow Leopard' gets first run
04 Jun 2015
Fabian Coulthard's new car shakedown has run without a hitch at Winton, with the team now looking toward its debut at the SKYCITY Triple Crown later this month.
Brad Jones Racing chief engineer Andrew Edwards was pleased with the hit-out, reporting that Coulthard was comfortable in the car, which has only minor differences to 'Tallulah', the chassis that had carried over into this season.
"Very uneventful really! We just did our 20 laps, everything ran smoothly, there wasn't really much to report to be honest - it all feels good and we're pretty happy with what we've got," Edwards told v8supercars.com.au.
"We only had some very small little things we needed to sort out electrically, but mechanically the car was spot on.
"It doesn't feel very different, but he's got a good feeling about the car and we were happy with the time we did ... we have to see how it goes in Darwin now."
While V8 Supercars has strict testing rules, teams are allowed a maximum of 60kmwhen debuting a new car to run a full systems check before a race meeting. Edwards explained that the team elected to spread those allocated laps across the day to learn as much as possible about the new car.
"We're allowed to do 20 laps so we try and do short runs," he said.
"We did outings of three and four laps - so we go out, do three laps, come back in, check the systems we were looking at, go through the data making sure everything's turned on and off, look at everything electrically, and look at the data to make sure the car's working in the window it should be. We'll make a change if necessary, go back out, check that change and a couple of small tests to make sure the car responds the way it should.
"It's broken up into small runs because you're trying to learn as much as you can in a small amount of time about this new car and you balance between short enough that you learn something, but long enough that the car's warmed up and you get a reasonable read."
The new #14 Freightliner Commodore has been christened 'Alice the Snow Leopard' with number one mechanic Sam Cosgrove given the honour of 'naming' the V8 Supercar."We have some creative names here, that's all I'll say," Edwards laughed.
Coulthard currently sits third in the Championship and the chassis being replaced - BJR002, or Tallulah as it was christened - has been the team's most successful, having earned seven pole positions, eight race wins, 24 podiums and two lap records including Mount Panorama.
That car will become the team's spare, in preparation for the tight schedule at the end of the year, which sees five events running from October to early December, including the tumultuous Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and Castrol EDGE Gold Coast 600, which typically see severely damaged Supercars.
The SKYCITY Triple Crown runs from June 19-21, with tickets available by clicking here.
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