Drivers' Quoteboard: Practice

Jamie Whincup, Red Bull Racing Australia, p1: 

“Coming to Sydney is a massive change.

“It was the same thing at Phillip Island, you come from a nice flowing circuit to a crazy little street track so it was a bit of a shock to the system.

“I wasn’t able to put together two laps the same. I’d do a good half a lap and then a bad second half, so I’m working on improving my driving. We also took some paint off today so hopefully that’s the end of that for the rest of the weekend.”

Scott McLaughlin, Fujitsu GRM, p2: 

“Day one today at Sydney was a pretty good day for us, we were p2 overall. The car was pretty good, the boys tuned it up for me, me and Richard (Hollway, engineer) worked on it and came away with a pretty good car. 

“Looking pretty strong going into qualifying and hopefully can get the pace up. The car’s always good fun to drive around here, I really like the track so it’s good to be back. Looking forward to tomorrow.” 

Shane van Gisbergen, Supercheap Auto Racing, p4:

“Yeah, we were in and amongst it all day, which was good. We had some good tyres, which makes a difference in practice – tyres are always the major factor on Fridays – but we’ll see where everyone really is when we’re all on the same stuff tomorrow. The car feels pretty good, and the times are coming so that’s the main thing.”

Craig Lowndes, Red Bull Racing Australia, p7: 

“I’ve got a good record down at Sydney Olympic Park so I’m excited to be here this weekend.

“The car is very different to what we had last year so getting the car set up to ride the kerbs is a bit of a challenge but all in all I’m quite happy and may the best man win.” 

Jonathon Webb, Team TEKNO Darrell Lea, p8: 

“It was a much better day for us than we’ve been having recently. The car is pretty good, and we’re at a track I enjoy. Straight out of the gate we were fast, I’m enjoying the track, and enjoying the car. We haven’t changed too much, it was in the ball park and we haven’t gone too far away from that. There’s a few things for me to tidy up, the car is 90 per cent there – Geoffrey [Slater - race engineer] will make it better, I need to make my driving a bit better and we’ll get this thing in the shootout.”

Alexandre Premat, Fujitsu GRM, p9: 

“Day one in Sydney has been a pretty good start to the weekend. We tuned the car; I really like the race track because it’s like Macau or Monaco, pretty fast going through the kerbs. We will see where we end up tomorrow in qualifying but definitely we have a car to be in the top 12.”

Scott Pye, ekol Racing, p10 (via Twitter): 

“Not a bad day in the office. P10 in the final session…” 

Nick Percat, Holden Racing Team, p13 (via Twitter):

“Not a bad first day with @holden_racing in the #22 . Ended P13 today. Pretty happy so far, learning a lot already.” 

Tony D’Alberto, Team HIFLEX, p14: 

“Today was a good day in the end for us. I really like street circuits, and this is one of my personal favourites.

“We showed we were very competitive on the tight circuit all day today and the signs for the rest of the weekend look very positive. Really looking forward to tomorrow, we will be looking to repeat 2012 and make the Top 10 Shootout again.”

James Moffat, Norton Hornets, p19: 

“It was a bit of a struggle for us today, which is a bit concerning heading into qualifying and the races tomorrow.

“We made a lot of changes to the car today, and both Michael and I have similar problems with our cars, but we haven’t been able to figure it out yet.

“We’ll have a look at some stuff tonight and get our heads around it.”

Tim Blanchard, Wilson Security DJR, p21: 

“The car has improved in every session, so I am happy about that; but it looks like everyone else improved a bit more! Our pace on older tyres was really strong so as a race package I think we are looking OK. We didn’t get the times we should have out of the new tyres towards the end but the potential is there. So some work to do tonight to get on top of the new tyres so we can have a good crack at Qualifying.”

Chaz Mostert, Wilson Security DJR, p22: 

“We have got a bit to find at the moment so we’ll see how we go with the data in the debrief and see if we can unlock some speed for tomorrow’s qualifying. The new tyres did give us a gain of course, but it was not nearly as much as we were looking for.”

Michael Caruso, Norton Hornets, p23: 

“For some reason, we can’t get a handle on our car’s set-up, and that is something we haven’t been accustomed to this year.

“I’m not sure what the engineers can do, but we definitely need to come up with something. It’s not a great feeling to come back and be 1.5 seconds off the pace.”

Russell Ingall, Supercheap Auto Racing, p24: 

“Just usual practice stuff today…. It’s not what I wanted, put it that way. It’s put us behind the eight-ball at the moment.” 

Rick Kelly, Jack Daniel’s Racing, p25: 

"You only get six sets of race tyres provided for the race meeting, which is enough, but with two pit stops in each race on the weekend you need three sets each day and six sets in total. 

“For us, we didn't want to use one of those sets today, tyre degradation in the heat around here could be a factor as well so we wanted to keep the miles off.

"At the end of the session we got bumped back considerably when people ran a better set of tyres, but being here today was a real refresher of just how difficult it is to get a clean lap in out there.

"It's very tough, you have to hit the kerbs at just the right angle and be very precise with it, so that will be the challenge tomorrow for everybody in qualifying. If you can get one clean lap in you'll be half alright."

Todd Kelly, Jack Daniel’s Racing, p26: 

"I think it was not a bad day, I was in the top 10 on a few occasions and the best at one of the sessions was sixth, so the car has the pace.

“I just didn't get a lap at the end of the session in the last session, so at the end of the day, everyone looks at the last session and unfortunately we're up the back, but the car is certainly good enough to be near and even inside the top 10.

"I'm not fazed about it and hopefully we can show the cars true speed tomorrow when it matters."