Heimgartner 'stoked' with standout qualifying

Andre Heimgartner was “stoked” to secure top qualifying spots for Winton’s Sunday races.

Heimgartner impressed on Sunday morning, and will start Race 14 and Race 15 from fifth and third respectively.

The latter result was the Kiwi’s best qualifying result to date with Brad Jones Racing.

It comes after Heimgartner scored a surprise podium last time out in Perth.

"We’re really, really stoked,” he said.

"Yesterday, we actually had not a bad race car.

"I said, ‘Look, we’re close to making it really fast’, we just needed some more drive and a couple of other little things.

"Overnight, Tony [Woodward, race engineer] and the whole engineering group did an amazing job.

"As soon as I rolled the car out, I’m like, 'Okay, now we’re talking.’

"The first one was pretty conservative and we ended up fifth.

"[Qualifying for Race 15], I had a little bit more of a dig and ended up third.

"Really, really stoked for R&J Batteries and the whole crew.”

Winton is BJR’s ‘home’ test track; the team is based in nearby Winton.

BJR won two races at Winton in 2016 courtesy of Tim Slade.

However, Heimgartner refused to buy into any possible advantage.

"We went into this weekend not having a really strong set-up or a strong direction to go,” he explained.

"It’s a credit to the guys that they’ve been able to analyse what we’ve learnt from the test day.

"We didn’t really unlock anything, we just learnt things, which was positive.

"Then we came this weekend with that toolbox and we managed to actually put the pieces together to make it obviously not bad.

"It’s good. We’ll wait for the two races today. Anything can happen.

"This little track is so much action, but we put ourselves in the best position."

Race 14 will commence at 12:25pm local time.

The Pizza Hut Winton SuperSprint will conclude with Race 15 at 3:35pm.