O’Keeffe set for double duties at Sandown 500
By Timothy Neal
Date posted: 14 September 2023
Dylan O’Keeffe, like a handful of the co-drivers, will be on double duty this weekend at Sandown in the Carrera Cup and Supercars.
O’Keeffe is back in the hot-seat with James Golding at PremiAir in the Gen3 Camaro, and like Dale Wood, David Russell, Fabian Coulthard, he’ll also be behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 cup car.
With tyre management and strong qualifying an absolute key factor in the Carrera Cup field, he’s also identified his need to play the long tyre game for the benefit of Golding in the #31 Camaro.
“It’s going to be really interesting this year, there aren’t any compulsory pit stops and the co-drivers could potentially complete their 54-lap minimum on a single tank of fuel, but I don’t think the super soft tyres will last that long,” the Vic racer said.
“So if we have to stop earlier, that means I’ll probably have to do more laps overall to line up with the rest of our strategy, and ensure James has the best tyres to fight with at the end.”
O’Keeffe put in some extensive race sim laps at QR to prepare for his co-driving duties in the #31 Camaro
O’Keefe also had a full week of testing across both categories, which has put him in good stead for both the physical demands of long enduro stints, as well as backing up for Porsche stints.
“The test day was good, because by the time I jumped in the car for a race run, I was pretty fatigued from all the driving I’d been doing, so it was good practice for the race.
“James and I worked well together and we were both giving very similar feedback about the car.”
O’Keeffe had a pretty consistent year in the 911 last season, finishing third in the championship as well as taking a win at Sandown against the rampant form of Aaron Love.
But 2023 has been below the expectations from a driver of his quality, but he managed to take a podium at The Bend in August, as well as showing a bit more toe in qualifying.
The Victorian racer took his first podium of the year in the Carrera Cup at The Bend
“In the last round at The Bend, I qualified well, but our race pace wasn’t quite where it needed to be, which put me back in the pack and ultimately saw me getting involved in the Race 3 accident. The GWR crew did a great job to fix the car so quickly and it felt perfect on the test day.
“Sandown was one of our strongest rounds last year and our car seems to work well there, with good traction off the low speed corners leading onto the two long straights.”
Sandown Event Schedule
Friday, 15 September
9:10am – Carrera Cup Practice 1 (25 min)
10:45am – Supercars Practice 1 (35 min)
12:00pm – Carrera Cup Practice 2 (25 min)
12:40pm – Supercars Practice 2 co-drivers (30 min)
3:00pm – Carrera Cup Qualifying 1 Am drivers (12 min)
3:18pm – Carrera Cup Qualifying 2 Pro drivers (12 min)
3:45pm – Supercars Practice 3 (30 min)
Saturday, 16 September
10:05am – Carrera Cup Race 1 (18 laps)
1:40pm – Supercars Qualifying (20 min)
3:25pm – Carrera Cup Race 2 (31 laps)
5:20pm – Supercars Top 10 Shootout (1 lap)
Sunday, 17 September
10:10am – Supercars Warm-up (20 min)
12:10pm – Carrera Cup Race 3 (18 laps)
2:15pm – Supercars Sandown 500 (161 laps) |
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