Winton crash in the past for jet-setting Jones

Macauley Jones has put his crash-marred run at Winton behind him, focusing on the upcoming round of the V8 Supercars Dunlop Series at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 next month.

The twenty-year old future star failed to finish the first race at Winton last month, and though histeam managed to get the PAYCE Commodore on-track to record two 16th place finishes and earn some points in the final two races, there was significant damage to the chassis.

While Jones was understandably disappointed by the accident -on par, if not more extensive than his first major crash at Homesbush last year - a trip to Germany for the FIA Young Driver Excellence Academy helped put it all in perspective.

The academy is led by ex-Formula One driver Alex Wurz and World Rally Champion co-driver Robert Reid, and Jones is one of 12 participants, representing the Asia-Pacific region - a testament to his driving talent.

"Winton was a tough weekend for me, so getting the opportunity to go overseas and talk with some world-renowned drivers and coaches was a great experience and allowed me to put Winton in the past and focus on Townsville being next," Jones told v8supercars.com.au.

"After the incident [the car] had pretty much lost the wheeling into the chassis and broke all the suspension arms on the left front corner, and had also snapped a piece of the k-frame off, so it was quite a lot," Jones explained.

"It was a disappointing start to the weekend, having a crash in the first race and a DNF - it always puts you on the back foot for the remainder of the races seeing as you have to start from the back.

"It's always a bit disheartening really, especially with [the accident] being [in] the first race of the weekend, it puts you on the back foot a lot. It's something that I was quite frustrated with, but at the same time there's no point getting caught up in that situation.

"As a team, we dealt with it quite well and got on with it and just did the work we had to do to get it back on track ... the guys did an awesome job at making sure the k-frame was all square [at Winton] and making sure everything was bolted back well."

Joining 12 of the world's most promising motorsport talents overseas at the Sachsenring circuit was the perfect way to regroup from what was his worst Dunlop Series round result to date.The FIA Young Driver Excellence Academy strives to develop young racing talent worldwide and promote the principles of safety, fairness and responsibilities on and off the track.

The third workshop of fivefocused on enhancing the drivers' understanding of vehicle dynamics and their influence on car balance. The participants drive a variety of cars - front, rear, and all-wheel drive - on different handling tracks as well as on specially designed slippery training modules.

Other drivers participating have a range of motorsport backgrounds, so Jones collaborates with other promising stars with experience ranging from rally to GP2 racing.

But he says they're all jealous of his V8 Supercar!

"They all pretty much watch it on TV and love watching it, so I found that quite interesting. The Dunlop Series an awesome class, you can have a lot of fun with them and they're quite different to drive compared to what they're driving.

"I'm learning quite a lot from the rally drivers - they have such a different approach to racing and we have done a lot of practical work where we sit as passengers while the other contestants were driving and you pick up a lot of different techniques, which was really interesting."

The V8 Supercars Dunlop Series resumes at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, which will mark one year since Jones made his debut in the category.

He finished 10th in his first race in the series and is pleased to head to a circuit he has experienced before.

"I'm finally going to a track that I've raced on in the V8 Supercar, which will be fantastic because it's difficult to go to new tracks that I haven't raced on before in this car and try and get a solid run," Jones said.

"Townsville is one of my favourite tracks to race on, so I'm really looking forward to it - I think we can do quite well there."