Drivers' Quoteboard: Race 35

Jamie Whincup, Red Bull Racing Australia, p1: 

“I’m extremely happy with today.

“I had an absolute rocket ship and full credit to the 50 people or so involved in the process – I’m just happy that I have the opportunity to showcase the full potential of the car.

“I’m rapt with this win but the championship is still very much alive, we’re just in a slightly better position and tomorrow it’s on!”

Jason Bright, Team BOC, p4: 

"I'm pretty happy with fourth. It was looking like it was going to be a pretty bad day for a while there.

"I finally made a good start and everybody bombed me. If I didn't get out of everyone's way I would have had a crash. I was just in no man's land for the whole of the first lap.

"We were actually last at one stage mid-race. I could tell because I looked in my rear-view mirror and there was nothing! My pace behind other cars is woeful because I have no drive off the corners. My brakes are really strong but you can't use that strength behind other cars.

"I was pretty confident we would leap-frog the mid-pack with our strategy because we had fuel in hand and gained three or seconds from that in our stop. Then we were lapping in the high 1:29s when they were all battling. It was pretty satisfying to pop out in the top ten when we had been running 24th."

Will Davison, Pepsi Max Crew FPR, p5: 

“Overall I definitely need to find some time as we started pretty good but as more grip went down we fell away. I finished sixth with a car I am not that happy with so that shows that we are strong here as to be so high with an uncooperative car is a bonus. I feel pretty confident for tomorrow but at the moment the new car is proving trickier around here than what we’ve experienced here in previous years.”

Tony D’Alberto, Team HIFLEX, p6: 

“Was a great day for us, the vibe in the team is really good tonight. It’s good to back up from yesterday and be running around in the top 10 all day.

“The racing was crazy all throughout the race! Felt nearly every couple of laps there was some sought of incident somewhere. We were in a good enough position where we were able to stay out of trouble with a strong car. Tomorrow is looking good from here as we think we can probably find even more pace.”

Michael Caruso, Norton Hornets, p7: 

“It’s absolutely fantastic to end up with seventh here in Sydney.

“We had the strategy spot on. My engineer got that perfect, and he gave me a better car for the race, so I have to thank him for that.

“To come from 24th to seventh – I’m very pleased.

“I had a bit of a struggle with front brakes. It was an issue for virtually half the race. I had to nurse it quite a bit.

“So to come away with seventh, and with some investigations for cars ahead of us, I reckon we’ve had a really great result.”

Tim Slade, Erebus Motorsport V8, p8 (via Twitter): 

“P8 today. Had half decent pace & made the most of others misfortunes! Big night for all the crews after late finish..." 

Rick Kelly, Jack Daniel’s Racing, p9: 

"I really enjoyed the race, EP (engineer Erik Pender) and the team gave me a really good car, we had a couple of solid stops, but I thought our race was over on the first lap when someone hit me and blew the tyre straight away.

“Because of that we had to pit one more time compared to everyone else and it put us almost a lap down. Lucky we got the first safety car, which put us on the back of the pack and we just snuck forward when someone made a mistake.

"The car allowed us to do that, so it's exciting to recover to ninth, but a little disappointing as well, because we had really good car pace in clean air and it would have been good to see where we ended up, so we'll make the most of that tomorrow."

Todd Kelly, Jack Daniel’s Racing, p10: 

"That's tough going out there, we lost a few spots in the pit stops, but the biggest thing is we survived and it's pretty hard to do that around this joint.

“To have three cars in the top 10 is a good day one. Visibility was terribly out there, if there weren't a couple of decent bumps in the road you wouldn't know where to brake into turn two.

"It was good to survive it ad hopefully we can tune the cars up and do a bit better tomorrow." 

Alex Davison, Jeld-Wen FPR, p12 (via Twitter): 

“Had to work hard for it today, car started out a handful but improved it in the end and hopefully have a good direction for tomoz.”

Alexandre Premat, Fujitsu Racing GRM, p13: 

“Day two in Sydney at the end has been a pretty good day, p13 in the race. Qualifying was not the best especially being pushed by Moffat, there was  damage to the car after that. 

“We had a black flag at one stage because we had an issue with the body in the back because someone pushed me at turn two on lap one or two. We tried to fix that but lost like 15 seconds. 

“We race tomorrow, we will do our best for qualifying and to have a better spot for the race tomorrow.”

Garth Tander, Holden Racing Team, p14 (via Twitter): 

“Can't thank the @holden_racing crew enough for the rebuild job, to even be in the race today, best crew in pitlane... 

“Tough day at the office. Still had braking issues in the race. Good news is we found the issues and will be fixed tomorrow.”

Craig Lowndes, Red Bull Racing Australia, p15: 

“It’s not over till it’s over.

“You can see from today, anything is possible. It was a terrible day but we survived.

“What hurt us the most was not getting enough fuel in to the car which was a result from the accident with Winterbottom.”

Alex Davison, Team JELD-WEN, p16: 

“Whatever out starting set-up was it wasn’t nice. We didn’t make the most of the first two sessions as we were trying to work out what we’d done wrong as the car was un-driveable. Our day basically started at the start of the final session. That might sound silly but we started so far behind the eight ball that by the time we got it right it was time for the final session. Some of the changes we made early have remained so hopefully we can keep improving and be strong tomorrow.”

David Reynolds, The Bottle-O FPR, p17: 

“In the first session we struggled a lot with car balance but we made good progress and went fastest in the next. We then bent a front-right damper in the final practice which hindered our performance. It’s unfortunate but that is the nature of the circuit. Without that I think our car balance is quite good and we should be in the fight tomorrow.”

Nick Percat, Holden Racing Team, p18 (via Twitter): 

“Was running pretty well hanging out with my mate @TimSlade47 inside the top 10 until I got sushi trained into turn 1. Take 2 tomorrow.”

Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing, p19:

"What's done is done. I can't change anything. I'm pissed off, annoyed, all of the above. You just can't put it into words.

"In the drivers' briefing we were told that if you're going to have a look at that point of the track you need to be at the front wheel of the car you're passing. He (Shane van Gisbergen, who nudged Coulthard into the fence) was not even anywhere near. It felt like he came from about three car lengths back and if I wasn't there he would have ended in the fence... If it wasn't for that we could have easily held him off. We'd gapped him and he was making mistakes left, right and centre."

James Moffat, Norton Hornets, p20: 

“That is a race to forget as I reckon we had a good chance to be with the rest of the Nissans in the top 10.

“The car felt pretty good. Qualifying down the back did not help, but I was on the same pace as the leaders and chipping through.

“The first pit-lane penalty was marginal. There was definitely contact, but I thought we’d be OK.

“The second one was totally my fault. I put Scott (Pye) in the fence and I did not mean for that to happen.

“We’ll give it the once over tonight and hit the restart button for tomorrow.” 

Chaz Mostert, Wilson Security DJR, p21: 

“We were not able to unlock a really good Qualifying package and started too far back today. I didn’t get the greatest of starts and dropped a few spots. Then getting caught up with Fiore really just sent us from bad to worse. The car is much better than today’s result, so we will work hard tonight to try and finish the series on a high note for DJR.” 

Scott Pye, Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport, DNF (via Twitter):

"Tough day. Running p15 when Moff out braked himself and t-boned me. Boys working hard to get it fixed…" 

Mark Winterbottom, Pepsi Max FPR, DNF:

“At the end the car was quite good but I struggled a bit at the start of the day. We are obviously up the front somewhere so if we can tweak it up and qualify well we will be able to apply some pressure. The plan ... is to try and win. It is a tough track to even finish a race at so we will try and attack and see where we end up at the end of the race.”

Via Twitter: 

“Congratulations to Jamie and team red bull on the championship. Driving this race with tonsillitis has seriously hurt the body!!” 

Maro Engel, SP Tools Racing, DNF (via Twitter):

"Not asking for much just a clean run with the car to the finnish. Seems impossible in the long races this year."

Tim Blanchard, Wilson Security Racing DJR, DNF: 

“The race was really going well. We had a good start, grabbed some spots and pitted just at the right time. It was an awesome pit stop from the DJR boys and I was right in the mix in the Top 10. Shane (Van Gisbergen) dive-bombed me into Turn 1 leaving me no option but to clout the tyre barrier and end our day. It was a very disappointing end to what I reckon could have been a good result. The car did not look to bad so I’m sure the guys will do a great job tonight so we can recover in the second 250km race.”

Scott McLaughlin, Fujitsu Racing GRM, DNF: 

“Today wasn’t the best for us. 

“Qualified 11th so we had a pretty good a day in that regard, but I probably should’ve been in the top 10, but I stuffed up. 

“In the race had a gearbox go after pretty good start, we were running in the top 10. Hard luck but. at the end of the day that’s what happened. Got back on the twitter and talked to some fans so that was good to lighten it up. 

It’s not all bad, I was racing a V8 Supercar at Sydney, so not bad at all.”