Drivers' quoteboard: Bathurst practice
09 Oct 2014
"It is good to be the current lap record holder at Bathurst. It has a nice ring to it! Today we started out pretty fast so it was always going to get better if went in the right direction which we did. We ran one set of tyres until my fast lap so that is also encouraging given our pace. Dean did a fantastic job. Every time I got back in after him the car was much better to drive so we're working well together."
"We've enjoyed the week so far, and we've enjoyed being defending champions but as a team we want it for another 12 months and we've started off well today. It is hard work out there and while there is a lot more speed, that brings some issues but it seems to be the same for everyone. Hopefully we can maintain our speed and I think Sunday will be a good race given the fast times we are all doing."
"It's been a tough day. Up until the last part of the final session I haven't felt overly happy with the car. Luke did a good job and maximised the car on the tyres he had. For me, I've been really mindful of the rear of the car and you can't afford to be thinking about that when you're trying to commit yourself. It was promising though at the end. It was nice to be under what was the current record. I looked down at my dash and thought 'Is this true?', so that was pretty cool. There's still time to find, and some work to do but it's a pretty good base."
"I hardly did any laps today. I'd just drive out go through a couple of corners and then straight back in for changes. The final lap there was probably the only time I've really had a go at it across the top of the mountain. I felt like with the rest of the day if I did that it was going to bite us. I feel like we made the right call working on setup through the day rather than chasing a time. There's still more to come but it's definitely heading in the right direction."
"It was definitely a productive day for us. We were searching a little bit because the new surfacing has done what everyone thought it would by making all the cars faster. But with that you've got to tune the car to suit the new track and we've managed to do that. We were really happy with the car at the end of the day, we just didn't have the speed to be right up the front but we know there is still a lot more in the car and me. Tomorrow is a new day and we have a couple of more practice session before we've got qualifying so we should be good for a top 10 result and then the shootout which is always an unknown but we're looking forward to it!"
"A pretty positive day all in all. It's nice to get the first day out of the way without any major dramas.
"The big unknown for us was the new track surface and its grip. Certainly, we need to make some adjustments to the car, but we're pretty happy with how it has started.
"Taz did a terrific job in his co-driver session and we seemed to show reasonable speed all day.
"It's funny. We ended up ninth for the session and we did a 2m07s - that's the fastest time I've ever done around here!
"It's important that we look over the data overnight and stay on top of the changing track conditions, which I thought we did a good job of today."
"It was encouraging today. We rolled out ok but we read the track a little wrong despite being fastest. I think a lot of us were caught out early but we improved, though there are a few things I want to tidy up. I didn't get the run and wasn't happy with my brakes at the end of the day but the time is there as we saw with Dave and Frosty. They have more experience than me around here so I am just building up. If we can qualify in the top 10 that is my goal. The morale in the team is great. Everyone has a little sparkle in their eye so hopefully we can keep this pace up all weekend."
"We started a bit behind the eight-ball in the first two sessions, but my engineer Steve Todkill did a fantastic job to bring the car back into the zone.
"Tomorrow is a completely different day, so we just need to go over what we learnt today and put our best foot forward in qualifying.
"The track surface has made a big step up in grip, and amongst that, it brings the speed and we've seen some very quick cars so far. It's interesting, and I think it's going to be very difficult to get into the shoot-out, but saying that, qualifying will be different to the shoot-out because they're at completely different times of the day."
"For us it's extremely exciting to see all of the hard work the entire team has put in on the development side of things starting to pay off.
"It's early days yet, but you can see there is progress in today's results.
"We've all got a lot of work to do with our cars to make it nice on the new surface, so for us to be where we are it's pretty exciting.
"On the car 15 side of things, we had a challenging start to the day with a couple of issues, and we got them ironed out.
"We found some pace there and ran some different sets of tyres from some different batches, and the car handled very differently on them.
"We need to tune it for the Bathurst tyre we've been given, and if we can do that, we can be in for a really exciting weekend.
"It's now head down, backside up, and make the most of the opportunities ahead of us."
"It's never ideal to crash at Bathurst, but if you're going to do it, the day to do it is Thursday. Get it out of the way, and move on. The car is pretty tough to drive, so there's no hard feelings towards Cam at all. We know he's more than capable of doing the job. We lost a lot of time on track today, particularly for Cam losing his entire co-driver session, and then we had an issue in the last session where we lost a lot of time as well. We bolted on our first set of decent tyres, and I didn't brake until I saw Elvis! The grip level is improving around here, particularly as the sun went down today. We did a fast time, I've never done a mid-seven around Bathurst, but it was obviously pretty cool to see Dave break the record today. We'll be able to use their data tonight, and hopefully get right on it and the make the most of it for qualifying tomorrow."
"I was quite surprised with the lap I did there at the end.
"We had a little bit of a misfire that we chased after Alex did a few laps at the start and I got in.
"I did one lap to quantify the setup we had, then we made a reasonably big change, and went straight onto a new set of green tyres.
"I didn't really know what kind of car I had under me, two laps would have been handy, so it was a pretty wobbly lap.
"To end up where we did, I think there's a bit of potential in it."
"It was a really tough day for us. We're not in the ballpark with the car at the moment and we're currently around the mid-pack. I had a suspicion that this might be the case today and it has been. With the massive change in track conditions as a result of the resurfacing, it's always a lottery on how much pace you're going to have when you roll off the truck. Having said that, we've been in this position plenty of times before and we've pulled through. I've got full faith in the team and engineers that they can reinvent the wheel overnight and try to get us back where we'd like to be."
"At the start of the day it was really uncomfortable - massively lively in the rear but as the track developed and we tuned the car it's definitely a lot better now. I still feel for me I need to calm the rear down to get the pace I believe we should have. Chris is more comfortable in the car but the way I drive the car I need a more settled rear so I can really push and go a lot faster. I left a lot on the table but it's been a good experience and there's a couple more practice sessions to get things right tomorrow before qualifying."
"It is great to be back at Bathurst and roll the car out on track. We had a good day overall, running one set of tyres right up until near the end of P3. The car was good on used tyres and both Ash and I were running competitively. The new tyre was not too bad, but the times some of those front guys ran caught a few people by surprise.
"The changes we made during the day were all positive and the car got better and better. We have some time to find before qualifying but we have come off a good day's practice. "
"The car felt reasonably good as soon as we rolled out, we only had to make a few minor changes and by the end of the session we were comfortably sitting in the top pack.
"Overall the track definitely like it had more grip but I think we will have to wait until later in the weekend once there has been more rubber laid to see how fast it really is."
"I had an uneasy feeling in the car and radioed to Chris (Stuckey) that I was coming in. I had no indication that the tyre was going down but that is what it was and it let go about half way down Conrod.
"The boys did an amazing job to get it fixed in such a short time. We got some laps in the final session and we were OK, not really on top of the car which such short running, but we have something to work with plus the #16 car's data to review."
