Dutton conservative with Townsville predictions

Mark Dutton says there is work to do after yesterday's practice at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 if Jamie Whincup is going to challenge for a win this weekend.

But the advantage of having him run the car with 2014 engineer David Cauchi meant there was a strong engineering group dedicated to the improvement of car #1.

Dutton has stepped in to engineerthe six-time champ this round, as Whincup finds himself down on confidence and further back in the order than he has ever been during his dominant seven years in the Championship, 286 behind leader Mark Winterbottom.

While Dutton - who was promoted to team manager last year after engineering Whincup to five Championships - was excited to "get the band back together" he was conservative in his predictions for the weekend.

The Red Bull team has been known to record mid-pack results during practice and blitz the field in qualifying, but Dutton said that would take some improvements from the crew overnight. Whincup finished 18th overall in the practice order, with teammate Craig Lowndes 10th.

"We were hoping to be further up the order [in practice] - we did a lot of work and before the green tyre run we actually thought we had the car in quite a good spot ready for the green tyres," Dutton told v8supercars.com.au.

"Before you put green tyres on your car's out of balance because you're preparing it with used tyres," he explained.

"We were actually in quite a good space, we thought, ready for the greens and then didn't get the predicted balance shift with the greens, so further down than we were expecting...

"There's work to do to really analyse why we didn't get where we expected."

Dutton slipped straight back into his old role despite 18 months away, but explained there was a greater focus on the finer details as a race engineer.

But he now has more support - differently from most teams, Red Bull has a central data engineer, rather than one on each car.

"One of the biggest positives from this change is it gives us two data engineers [who are] both experienced. As soon as you have two, you have not a data engineer but a performance engineer. They can do a bit more of that and give a bit more assistance, which so far this weekend Cauchi has been fantastic on that

"So you do strengthen up the engineering group at the track doing that ... as an engineering group we have to shoot our bullets where we need them most."

Having been through the ebb and flow of Championship battles year in year out with Whincup, Dutton knows the driver's personality and reactions. Hedid play more of a part than the traditional team manager at times last year as he mentored Cauchi, which came with enormous pressure as Whincup fought for the highest number of Championships in history.

Dutton said this weekend, the six-time champ was both nervous and confident.

"I was excited to do a good job... just to bolster him and the boys, things like that," he said.

"We don't have the results yet - still, the head's not down yet, we have to analyse."

Whincup told v8supercars.com.au yesterday that a top 10 finish would be great, with a top five best.

"That's where the history together can help," Dutton said.

"Sometimes better in the bad times, when you're not going well, the longer history together, part of the reason is hopefully try and steer in the right direction, mentally and setup-wise."

Erebus Motorsport's Will Davison recorded the fastest time of the day, with Chaz Mostert and Nick Percat also showing promising pace.