De Pasquale optimistic after strong Friday

Friday in Darwin was "better than where we’ve been” for Anton De Pasquale, who set the practice pace at the betr Darwin Triple Crown.

De Pasquale clocked the fastest time at Hidden Valley Raceway on Friday in his #11 Shell V-Power Ford.

The 27-year-old hasn’t had a good time of it so far in 2023, sitting 19th in the points with no podiums to his name.

The early Darwin pace comes after De Pasquale put on a clinic in the Tasmania races, passing 22 cars across the three sprints.

One-lap pace is what has been missing; De Pasquale’s average starting position (14.0) is the 15th best in the field.

Speaking after Friday's session, De Pasquale hoped he could carry his fast start into Saturday, and the rest of the season.

“Good to be at one of these,” De Pasquale quipped, regarding his first press conference of the season.

“We’ve come from a test day, we thought we learned some things, and today was better than where we’ve been.

“Hopefully we can follow that into the rest of the weekend and the rest of the year.”

De Pasquale identified one-lap pace as a crucial fix for after Tasmania, with Will Davison — who was ninth quickest on Friday — defending “unfair” criticism of the team.

The last victory for the team was Davison’s in New Zealand last September. De Pasquale’s last win came in Darwin, 12 months ago.

Team Principal Ben Croke recently said the team made “positive changes” at a recent test day, and the early signs are good — but De Pasquale remained level-headed.

“There’s limited stuff you can do with these cars, but there are some different directions you can go,” he said.

“We’ve elected to go a different one, and it seems to be better. Whether that’s today, tomorrow, the rest of the year — who knows.

“Around here, it seems okay over one lap — but you start lap two, it’s pretty hard work.

“Race pace and race deg, that’s still going to be pretty hard. But we’ll see."

On Ford’s dry run, De Pasquale said: “Haven’t thought about it — just taking it one day at a time.

“On our side, we’ve had a bit better day than where we’ve been. But what that has in store for tomorrow, I couldn’t tell you.”

Cars will hit the track for knockout ARMOR ALL Qualifying at 11:30am local time/12:00pm AEST.