Merc damage looked worse than it was

Today's test at Queensland Raceway ended earlier than expected for the Davison brothers, after Alex found the tyres running off at turn three.

The Pirtek Enduro Cup co-driver was fine, but the brake failure that sent him spearing off-track meant damage ended the day for the #9 Mercedes Benz AMG.

However, after inspection Erebus Motorsport technical director Wes McDougall said the damage looked worse than it probably is.

"Anytime you go in at turn three there it's a big hit if you manage to reach the tyres and go through the sand trap. But once we got it back here into the pits and pulled a lot of the cosmetic stuff off it really doesn't look too bad at all," McDougall told v8supercars.com.au.

"The initial inspection here would be, if it was at a race meeting and we had a couple of hours there'd be no reason that we couldn't actually get it back on track.

"Say it was a Friday practice crash, then we'd be back in the game for Saturday morning qualifying.

"We won't know completely until we get it back to the workshop and take the engine out there -but the initial inspection doesn't look too bad. All the things you expect to crumple up, bend and fold did that, so we'll see at the workshop.

"But not as bad as everyone first thought."

For the team the test was about validating what they had learnt at race meetings, focusing on what would work for upcoming events Darwin and Townsville, and giving co-drivers Davison and Craig Baird laps in the cars.

Up until that stage, eight was going really well, according to McDougall.

"Alex got in the car and was on the pace straight away compared to his brother - the first time he's obviously been in the AMG.

"And the same with Bairdo, in the car 4. Both our co-drivers got laps and their laps will increase as the years go on... It was an initial hit-out today but they did really good lap times comparatively to their main drivers for their first hit-out of the year."

Car 4completed over 150 laps at the 3.12km circuit.

"Today was all about evaluating all the changes we made on the track this year. And lots of suspension setup parameters, mainly in the rear of the car.

"With the three practice sessions this year it's hard to test too many things with those restrictions in place, it's good to get them done here in isolation at the track."

Car four even had a stint on green tyres.

"The way the test allocation is this year, there's lots of new tyres and not many test days, so practice tyres and test tyres you've got quite a few, where the race tyres are quite limited."

While team manager Dave Stuart -who was recently appointed Sporting and Technical Director for V8 Supercars - suggested possible engine developments for the test, those are still being worked on.

Red Bull Racing Australia also ran at Ipswich today and reported positive progress.