D'Alberto: 28th Not Indicative

After a strong run at the last event, yesterday wasn’t Team HIFLEX’s best showing. Tony D’Alberto ended the Coates Hire Ipswich 360 Practice Two dead last – but felt he didn’t get a good run during the session.

“I don’t even know where we were in the first one [22nd] – but the last one we were last!” D’Alberto told v8supercars.com.au after yesterday’s Practice Two.

“That’s not a nice feeling at the end of the day … we just didn’t get a good run.

“We ran out of time a little bit in that session and we chucked on a set of tyres at the end there, but didn’t get a lap.

“We planned to do a soft tyre run at the end but we just ran out of time with some of the changes we were making.”

D’Alberto had his strongest finish of the season at the Sucrogen Townsville 400 last event, bagging sixth after qualifying in the top 10.

However, in the ARMOR ALL qualifying session for Race 21 at the Reid Park street circuit, D’Alberto was fortunate to get a quick lap in after a red flag meant a one-lap dash to determine grid position. It went the other way for him yesterday – but fortunately, no points are on offer during practice, and there is a third session this morning at 10.15am AEST, which will run for just half an hour.

The Team HIFLEX driver said they had saved the best tyres for today’s run, which would hopefully be a more telling sign of where the car is at comparatively.

“I don’t think (28th) is indicative of how the car is or where we sit in the field. A few tweaks overnight – the car’s not brilliant, but we can tidy it up for sure – and we’ve got our better sets of tyres for (P3).

“It’s just really difficult to know where everyone else is running and if they’re going to try and get a time… or wait.”

After the Townsville event, D’Alberto said his Car of the Future Holden Commdore had been the best it ever felt and leading the race as pit stop strategies played out was a confidence boost for the 27-year old driver.

While he has recorded 13 top 10 finishes in his V8 Supercars career, he is yet to stand on the podium.

Newly announced co-driver Jonny Reid was behind the wheel for the start of Practice One yesterday and D’Alberto was happy with his stint, confident the former Dick Johnson Racing pilot would be up to speed by the endurance races. He felt Reid was thrown into the deep end running in the car for the first time at a race weekend.

“The first session was to give Jonny a feel of the car. You can’t expect him to go out and go quickest straight away, but I think he had a good feel on things. It was also refreshing to get him (Reid) straight into the car considering we only announced him as our co-driver (Thursday).”

While D’Alberto said he wouldn’t stress about the result overnight – it was more like he would try not to. And there has been a development overnight – late in the evening it was announced by the Stewards both Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport cars had been excluded from Practice Two after failing to run the control front disc rotors listed in in the Further Supplementary Regulations. Dean Fiore, #88, had recorded the 16th best time while stablemate Scott Pye was 21st.

Today's V8 Supercar action kicks off with Practice Three at 10.15am AEST, followed by ARMOR ALL Qualifying and the 60/60 Super Sprint race in two halves.