Team 18 'on the wrong end of the stick'
Team 18 is currently “on the wrong end of the stick”
Mark Winterbottom qualified 23rd for both Perth races
David Reynolds brought home Sunday top 10
Team 18 is currently “on the wrong end of the stick” as its chases balance across qualifying and race set-ups, says Team Principal Adrian Burgess.
David Reynolds raced from ninth to 10th in Sunday’s Perth finale, while Mark Winterbottom fought to 20th after being impeded in qualifying.
A day earlier, Winterbottom started 23rd and finished 16th, with Reynolds 17th.
After Perth, Reynolds and Winterbottom are 13th and 15th in the drivers’ standings, and Team 18 seventh in the teams’.
Burgess, who joined the team in 2024, believes the team will be able to hold its own in the races once it gets its head around one-lap pace.
“I’m experiencing the lows, I want to get back to experiencing the highs that we've had before in team-land,” Burgess said on the broadcast after the race.
“We've got a bit of a challenge on at the moment. We're still understanding the car and developing the qualy car and the race car.
"And we just seem to be on the wrong end of the stick at the moment. It's good that we held on to our place today. We just need to start the top two rows where we should be, and then we'll be able to race there.”
Reynolds used an extra set of tyres to get through to Q3 and qualified ninth on used tyres. Winterbottom, meanwhile, didn’t get a competitive lap in at all after being impeded.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for Winterbottom, who has dropped six positions in the points in two rounds.
“What a tough weekend. We came here with a lot of hope and just didn't go our way,” said the 2015 champion, who scored a podium at the Grand Prix.
"Today my qualifying car was actually quite decent, but traffic hurt us. When the car came back on the track and I didn't get my lap in, you get one lap on a set of tyres, so that was that and it put me back in the pack.
“When we're back in the pack, we thought we'll have a swing on the set up and try something completely different and there's definitely bits that I know we can work on with it, but it was a bit of a guess and we just didn't get it right.
“Thankfully, we go home, we get a test day before Darwin. We've got so much stuff to test, and we'll bounce back. I know we'll bounce back, but we’re just a point at the moment where we just keep getting kicked in the guts a bit and you start to get frustrated.
Reynolds — who has a 13.4 qualifying average compared to Winterbottom’s 18.4 — was pleased to be able to maintain position in the finale and take his first top 10 since the Grand Prix.
“We rolled out in the qualifying with a much better idea of what we're gonna do,” Reynolds said.
"We started off in Q1, made it through to Q2, and then we used all our sets of tyres and made it into Q3, but unfortunately, once we got to Q3, we had no more tyres left, so we ended up qualifying ninth, which is much better than the day before.
“In the race, we went for a much wider swing on the setup, because yesterday's car was pretty average.
"So, myself and Krusty [Richard Hollway, engineer] and the team put our heads together and come up with some really good ideas and I think that worked because I was able to maintain my pace and we finished 10th overall in today's race.
“It’s a much better finish and everyone's much happier and it's given us a good direction, but we're understanding a few things about our car and we've got a test day coming up, which is going to be really important for the rest of the year.”
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