De Pasquale out to cash in at Hidden Valley

Anton De Pasquale hopes a fortnight spent at Norwell Motorplex will prove the ideal preparation to unlock his typically blistering pace at Hidden Valley today.

On the surface, the #99 Penrite Racing driver has had mediocre returns at the Top End: 11th and 15th in the 2018 races, and 11th and eighth last year.

Those results do no justice to the speed he’s frequently shown there, though.

It was in just the seventh event of his young Supercars career that De Pasquale set the timing screens alight with some stunning laps at the 2018 event.

Then just 22 years of age, he qualified third on both days; albeit dropping down the starting grid for the Sunday race after not quite nailing his Shootout lap.

De Pasquale again was on the second row of the grid last year for the Saturday, before securing sixth in the Sunday Shootout.

Given he’s made a step forward with his race pace in 2020, another top six grid slot could well be converted into a much more substantial haul of points this time around.

“We’ve gone from probably one of our weakest circuits being Sydney, where we had half-decent pace, to what would be one of our strongest circuits,” De Pasquale told Supercars.com.

“We were probably hurting a little bit going to Sydney for two weeks but being able to go to Darwin for two rounds in a row is pretty exciting.

“Darwin has always been a circuit I love, it would have been the first time I was able to qualify well and get good race results and stuff like that so I’m pretty excited to go back there for the third time.

“Hopefully as a team, myself and Dave [Reynolds, teammate] can get some really good results and keep the motivation throughout the team to keep moving forward while everyone is away from home.”

Darwin has been kind to Reynolds too, finishing on the podium the last four races there.

Between rounds, Penrite Racing set up camp at Paul Morris’ Norwell Motorplex in a hidden pocket of the Gold Coast, giving their drivers a chance to hit the track while away from home.

“In a normal year I spend a lot of time, especially at this time of year, up there anyway because of the weather and because of the facilities,” said De Pasquale.

“You can do a lot of stuff there, you can finetune and keep your stuff in check… you can do laps in cars and have a bit of fun.”

Both the BetEasy Darwin Triple Crown this weekend and the CoreStaff Darwin SuperSprint next weekend will feature three 38-lap sprint races.

The BetEasy Darwin Triple Crown will be broadcast live on Ten, Fox Sports and streaming on Kayo.

Fox Sports 506 will broadcast every session ad-free from 11:15am-5:15pm on Saturday and 11:15am-4:55pm AEST on Sunday.

Network Ten’s broadcast will run from midday to 5pm AEST on both Saturday and Sunday.