Slade quickest in first BJR outing

Tim Slade has topped the times at Winton Motor Raceway in his first outing with Brad Jones Racing.

Slade and a number of other competitors tested their new 2016 V8 Supercars for the first time today, on a new surface at Winton that threw up some variables.

Sixteen V8 Supercars tested in temperatures in the mid-30s, with a handful of Dunlop Series cars also on track.

At the end of the day, Slade’s 1min21.2608 – set on used soft tyres mid-morning – couldn’t be topped. Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney and Supercheap Auto’s Chaz Mostert came close on good tyres, with Courtney just 0.09sec away from P1.

“Fortunately I haven’t had to change my driving style too much to adjust to this car, so that was nice,” Slade told v8supercars.com.au.

“It was a really enjoyable day – other than being 8000 degrees!

“I’ve loved every second I’ve spent with everyone from the team so far … it’s really nice to be enjoying again.”

Slade completely the most running of all drivers, clocking 130 laps throughout the day.

“The car was really good all day,” he said.

“Even though the track was super hot and it was hard to get a read lap-time wise on the changes, it was still reacting positively to the changes, so we could get a read.”

As drivers tested the limits on the new surface, there were some early offs, with James Courtney tagging the wall at turn two early on in the day.

“It was ok, we had a couple of little bingles – James dropped a wheel off early on and scraped the car, so that put us back a little bit,” HRT team boss Adrian Burgess said.

“As everyone says, we had a program we were sticking to … at the end of the day we were reasonably competitive when everyone put the tyres on.

“February 22nd is too early to be swinging from the treetops and beating any drums. It went alright.”

Mostert’s return from injury was the day’s biggest story, and the Supercheap Auto racer was pleased to be back in the game.

"Great test day today. I did some okay times. I feel great in the car, I feel pretty comfortable in there, it's just like the old one,” Mostert said.

“The body held up really well today. Super pumped for Clipsal, I can't wait to get there; it's always a great event.”

Prodrive’s unconfirmed driver Cameron Waters finished fourth quickest, with Jason Bright, Rick and Todd Kelly, Mark Winterbottom, Lee Holdsworth/Karl Reindler and Garth Tander/Warren Luff completing the top 10.

Nissan’s Dale Wood and Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin completed the least amount of laps across the day, only recording 52 and 58 respectively.

“We had a few bits and pieces we wanted to work through which were quite long changes, so we just ticked away at them and got through them,” Wilson Security GRM team manager Dean Cowling said of McLaughlin’s limited running.

Two more Victorian based teams, Erebus Motorsport and Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport, will be on track to test on Thursday.