Fourth-place ended 'dire run' for Slade

Tim Slade's fourth-place finish in the second leg of the Superloop Adelaide 500 ends what the Brad Jones Racing driver says has been a 'fairly dire' run.

The Freightliner Holden driver and BJR team-mate Nick Percat grabbed fourth and fifth in on Sunday to cap a promising start to 2019.

That was Slade's first top-10 finish since last August's event at Tailem Bend, and followed the Saturday race in which he finished 17th.

Slade started 11th both days in Adelaide, but had to make an extra pitstop in the opener owing to a fuel drop miscalculation.

"I don't think the last four or five months have gone to plan," he said.

"I worked out I haven't had a top 10 since Tailem Bend. It has been fairly dire and kind of just been really weird of late.

"It's a massive, massive relief to have some pace and some feeling out of the car, [on Saturday] we were just sinking the whole race.

"We've probably gone from one of the worst cars to one of the best cars I've had around here.

"Still didn't have the ultimate pace, but I'll take that considering our run of late."

Slade leaves Adelaide ninth in the points, with Percat fifth after taking top 10s each day.

Percat started eighth and finished seventh on Saturday, and followed that with fifth from sixth on the Sunday.

"It’s been a nice start to the 2019 championship," he said.

"I’ve got the National Pharmacies Supercar into both Shootouts, finished inside the top 10 for both races and sit fifth in the championship after round one.

"To have Tim finish in the top five [on Sunday] as well was pretty cool for the Brad Jones Racing team as a whole, hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come this season."

Rookie Macauley Jones had a torrid maiden Supercars weekend in BJR's Team CoolDrive Commodore.

He qualified 17th for Race 1 but suffered a brake failure in Saturday morning's Practice 4 and crashed heavily.

That ruled him out of Saturday's race and after overnight repairs he lost 14 laps early on Sunday due to an alternator failure.

"It was a very tough one, we've got a lot to learn as a whole, from me and the team," Jones said.

"It was very disappointing with not having to even race [on Saturday] and then having an alternator problem early, which caused a few pitstops extra than what we wanted and it was quite tough out there.

"The issue ended up being very small and it is just one of those things where 3:30am in the morning isn't the time to be building the cars, so that always puts you on the back foot.

"It was a testament to even get the car out there, so I'm very grateful for that."