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Holdsworth hopeful after Townsville upturn

21 Jul 2015
Townsville top 10 a much-needed boost for Team 18 driver, who admitted his early 2015 results hit his confidence.
3 mins by James Pavey
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Lee Holdsworth is hopeful Team 18 has turned a corner following his best result of the season in Townsville.

While the 32-year old was thrilled with an unusual change that saw him move with Charlie Schwerkolt and his REC (Racing Entitlement Contract) to Walkinshaw Racing for this season, results have been hard to come by.

Given a tough two years with Erebus Motorsport, last year underlined by a number of DNFs and spectacular crashes, Holdsworth has been desperate to rise back up the ranks.

Finishing top 10 in Townsville on the Sunday was just the boost Holdsworth needed, as he strives to push further forward and has big international name Sebastien Bourdais set to join his squad for the PIRTEK Enduro Cup come September.

"Very, very happy," Holdsworth said after Sunday's race in Townsville.

"It's been a long time coming this year and it's just seemed like we were going backwards this year since Clipsal - since the test day even.

"But now I think we've found our feet again, we've gone in a bit of a different direction, which is a direction that is helping me... Hopefully this is where we start getting the ball rolling and start moving up the ladder for the rest of the Championship.

"But it's nice to get some confidence and we really needed this result."

He admitted the slow start to 2015 - after what felt like a successful pre-season SuperTest - has been difficult, particularly given stablemates James Courtney, Garth Tander and Tim Slade have all stood on the podium so far this season.

"The downs, the lows this year have had a big impact on me, especially after the last year or two with Erebus - there were pretty tough times," Holdsworth revealed to v8supercars.com.au.

"So I had high hopes coming here [to Townsville] and [it] probably shut down my confidence a little bit seeing James performing, Garth performing and Tim performing and us not getting a result.

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"We were genuinely fighting for 16th, 17th and 18th until this round [Townsville], so hopefully we're back and we've got some confidence back in the car - so [we'll] roll on to Queensland Raceway and see how we go."

Townsville was a track that had promise for Holdsworth, given Walkinshaw Racing's recent history, recording one-two finishes at the street circuit for the past two years.

And while it took until Sunday to crack the top 10, Holdsworth's seventh place was a clear step in the right direction and boosted him one position in the Championship standings.

"We really had our eggs in one basket and were hoping for a really good result," he said of Townsville.

"And we showed qualifying wasn't great speed between all four cars ... being the only one in the top 10 [on Sunday] was a true sign that we had to find some pace and obviously our tyre life saved us.

"We had really good speed in the race, we need to find something in qualifying to get us further up - not just top 10, but top three consistently and we need to keep searching for that new window."

Schwerkolt was also pleased with the upturn in results.

"Best result of the year," he said.

"It's really good, hopefully the corner's turned and we're on the way up now. Thrilled to bits. Lee drove really well, I'm proud of the team, the team really worked well ... so it's great for all the people on the car, it's really important to them and Lee and myself, so great result."

Holdsworth will feature on the Inside Supercars panel this evening with Nissan's James Moffat from 7.30pm EST, and will be online at v8supercars.com.au for a live chat at 12pm today.

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