Jackson Walls looking to build on strong finish to Townsville weekend
Qualifying speed identified as area of improvement for second half of season
23-year-old rookie will race at Perth for the first time in his career
Though he mightn't have claimed a headline result to go with it, Objective Racing rookie Jackson Walls knows that he made his biggest step as a Supercars driver yet.
Ticking over into the second half of his first season in the main game, Walls put together his most impressive race yet at Townsville, avoiding lap 1 chaos in the finale to comfortably hold sway on the fringes of the top 10.
Whilst a pit stop drama dropped him to 16th at the chequered flag, his pace was strong throughout the 200km journey, the #11 Objective Ford being the 12th-fastest of the 23 cars to survive the opening lap.
The Super2 race winner was ecstatic with his most recent performance: “I felt like today was probably our best Sunday race yet this year.
"For the first stint, we were pretty strong but then started to die towards the end, which wasn't ideal. Second stint was also really strong, I had a coming together with Zach [Bates] which seems to be a pretty common thing, but yeah, had some good battles and in the second and third stint today, coming back through the pack.
"At the second stop we had a bit of a problem with the right rear, so made coming through the pack a bit harder. We ended up 16th for the day and showed great pace, maybe we would have been 14th or 13th if it wasn’t for the pit stop.
"A big step for the team and particularly for myself."
Race Engineer Isaac Baldry, also in his rookie season, has now singled out qualifying as Walls' key area to improve on in the second half of 2026.
Walls' qualifying average of 19.9 is 22nd in the field, ahead of Macauley Jones (20.6) and fellow Super2 graduate Jobe Stewart (20.7), though there have been flashed of qualifying speed, missing a top 10 start in Tasmania by a fraction of a second.
"A rookie season is always very tough, and sometimes it takes a few events for all the little things to be put together, and I think this weekend was sort of a culmination of hard work by the team, and particularly by Jackson over the last few events to improve all the small details," said Baldry.
"The things that you don't see, the braking technique, how you drive the car, how you look after the tyres, getting the car in the window for qualifying, feedback on the setup - all the small things that go into becoming a good Supercar driver take a little bit of time.
"I think this weekend, a lot of those things started to fall into place, and the results showed.
"So, the qualifying pace was good at times and race pace was very strong across all three races. We had a few small issues here and there, but recovered well and scored very good points all weekend.
"I think that the team as a whole is very proud of the results this weekend, but it's really only a starting point that we're intending to build on for the rest of the season."
Perth stands as another big test for 23-year-old Walls, who will once again be starting from scratch.
Walls has never raced at Motormall Wanneroo Raceway before, with Team Manager Wes McDougall noting at Townsville that his performances have been noticeably improved at venues where he was previously raced Super2.
Baldry reassured that Triple Eight would give Walls all the pre-event preparation he needs, adding: "Perth is up next, where Jackson has never raced before, but we have processes in place at Triple Eight to prepare for these things.
"He's got some work ahead of him to get ready, but I'm sure we'll roll out strong and hopefully the Triple Eight cars will be up there."
Walls is 23rd in points heading into the Bosch Power Tools Perth Super 440 from July 31-August 2.
