Back on the grid

Young Kiwi racer Andre Heimgartner has opened up about the disappointment of 2015, when he was unable to finish the season with his V8 Supercars team Super Black Racing.

While he had posted a number of promising qualifying results, come the penultimate round at Phillip Island this year’s pilot Chris Pither replaced him in the Ford Falcon FG X for the last two events.

Announced yesterday, the 20-year old will line-up with Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport this season.

Heimgartner was philosophical about his experience, saying it taught him a few important lessons. There were no hard feelings with his old team, that offered him the opportunity to get himself noticed in pit lane.

“A few days before Phillip Island I got the call up saying I wasn’t driving and it was pretty heartbreaking at the time,” Heimgartner told v8supercars.com.au.

“[To be] cut off for the last two rounds to no fault of my own was pretty devastating – so that was pretty difficult for me personally to deal with as a lot of people know.

“It was a pretty rough time but you’ve got to understand what Super Black did for me, so I can’t be too hateful towards them. I would’ve liked it to go a different way – certainly very disappointing, a difficult time for me.

“It’s sort of helped me out in a way, made me realise a few things … I can’t say it’s been a total negative thing.”

As the final puzzle pieces were falling into place for the 2016 grid, Heimgartner was quickly linked to line up with LDM, with Tim Blanchard expected to shift from Lucas Dumbrell’s group to Brad Jones Racing.

During the off-season details of a GT deal emerged, but ultimately Heimgartner’s focus on was V8 Supercars and he and Dumbrell were able to strike a deal.

Heimgartner’s path to LDM is similar to his teammate Nick Percat, who also ran in the fourth car in a successful, established squad with Walkinshaw Racing for his debut season before shifting to the developing team, with Dumbrell offering him a lifeline. 

Percat’s best last year was sixth in Darwin and the Gold Coast, and the team looked promising on other occasions before mechanical issues.

“I think last year Lucas admits himself they had a few more reliability issues than they’d like,” Heimgartner said.

“But he promises me this year they’re going all out. I think Nick wants to take a big step up this year again, knowing there’s better equipment and all that sort of stuff – hopefully I can help push the team forward as well.

“It’s a great little family environment in the team too so I’ll be looking forward to that.”

There are some final team members to recruit, with an engineer still required for Heimgartner, after Brendan Hogan’s departure at the end of 2015. 

But the young gun is not worried about everything coming together.

“We’ll definitely have it all sorted by the test,” he said, referring to the Victorian teams’ Winton hit-out on February 22.  

“There’s a few personnel getting interviewed and might join so I think from that side of things we’ll be sorted.”

He’s looking forward to sampling the car in just over a week’s time at the newly resurfaced Winton Motor Raceway.

“I haven’t driven a Triple Eight car for a long time, about four years and it’s the first time I’ve ever driven a Holden, in a Supercar version … so it’s going to be something different I’ll have to get used to.”

The step up into V8 Supercars last year was a big one for Heimgartner, but the young Kiwi is proud of what he achieved and believed he proved a lot of people wrong with his performance.

“Two years in Development Series and straight into main game, it’s a lot to learn,” he said.

“I was pretty gutted at the end of last year I wasn’t able to continue on and do another year after what I’d learnt. It takes at least two or three years, as others have shown, to get the hang of driving a Supercar and how everyone works.”