Pye rues 40 points down the drain

Scott Pye believes he missed out on as many as 40 championship points as a result of misjudging the Sunday tyre situation at the BetEasy Darwin Triple Crown.

Pye delivered Team 18 its maiden podium as a standalone outfit in the Saturday race – just his ninth start for the Holden squad since switching from Walkinshaw Andretti United.

Having run long on one of two soft tyre sets in that outing, Pye was perhaps held back by a slightly conservative approach to Sunday, as tyre degradation proved to be rather low.

The #20 DEWALT Commodore would subsequently slip to finishes of 16th and 22nd on the second day of the Triple Crown.

“We probably should have backed ourselves a bit better,” said Pye.

“Our strategy was compromised because we thought we were out of tyres, so we would go long on our used set, wait for a Safety Car and bang on a fresher set and come back through.

“The Safety Car never came, and we weren’t expecting the second set of tyres to be as good as they were so if we had that race back we would have pitted in the earlier group.”

The net cost could hinder him in a tight midfield; Pye is currently 17th, less than 50 points off 14th-placed Rick Kelly.

“We probably gave away 40 points [on Sunday] that we probably could have snagged quite comfortably by just being more confident,” he added.

“But all in all, our race pace is amazing; if we can get Frosty’s quali car and the race car from mine in his, then I think we have got two very strong cars.”

While Pye broke through for some silverware, teammate Mark Winterbottom continued his excellent season to climb to seventh in the championship.

The Team 18 pair will be back in action this weekend at the CoreStaff Darwin SuperSprint, again hosted by Hidden Valley Raceway.