How milestone man Heimgartner turned it around

Reverting to a Gen2-style set-up proved pivotal in milestone man Andre Heimgartner’s charge to a surprise Tasmania podium.

Heimgartner marked his 100th round with a second-place finish in Saturday’s NED Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint opener.

The Brad Jones Racing driver was less than 0.7s behind winner, Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown.

Heimgartner caught Brown towards the end of the 42-lapper, having started fifth.

The Kiwi benefited from drama for series leader Brodie Kostecki, who was caught up in contact with Jack Le Brocq and Cam Waters.

BJR managed to get Heimgartner past Waters in the stops, and eventually caught Brown, who managed to take his second win of the season.

The podium was welcome reward for Heimgartner, who slumped to finishes of 21st, 10th and 22nd in Perth.

Second podium in five starts for Heimgartner

The Perth slump was a stark contrast to Albert Park, where Heimgartner finished second in the finale behind Broc Feeney.

Speaking after Saturday’s race, Heimgartner revealed he had reverted to a Gen2-inspired set-up philosophy.

Heimgartner has previously said he would have been fighting for wins have Gen2 carried over, given his pace towards the end of 2022.

The New Zealander took four podiums last season and — despite a number of DNFs — ended up 10th overall.

"[The set-up] is back to how I like driving the car and what we used mostly last year,” he said.

"So we got a bit misled from AGP stuff and that sort of tanked Perth a bit.

"But it's great to come here and have some good speed obviously to get second and some good race pace, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

When asked if he can stay at the sharp end of the field on Sunday, he said: I’m not sure; another fast pit stop would help.

“Qualifying up front is key, especially here with how you achieve your speed. Even how Will was achieving his speed versus mine was very different.

“I think once you get jammed up behind some cars, it makes it a bit difficult, so starting from the front, as always, is key.”

On 100 rounds, he added: “It is pretty awesome.

“When you’re a little kid, you don’t think you’ll be in Supercars, it seemed pretty far-fetched.

“So to get 100 rounds is pretty awesome.”

Heimgartner arrives on Sunday seventh in the drivers' championship, with track action to commence with dual qualifying from 9:50am local time.