PremiAir chasing more

Despite an impressive drive to fifth from James Golding in Race 8 at Taupo, PremiAir Nulon Racing believes so much more is possible.

Both PremiAir cars Golding and Tim Slade showed speed at contrasting points of the Taupo Super400.

Slade had great one-lap speed, making both Shootouts, but was unlucky on Saturday, crashing inside the first 100 metres before a lack of tyre life and a pit stop blunder restricted him to 21st.

Meanwhile, Golding was the opposite, battling in qualifying but making up massive ground in the races.

After rising 15 spots to soar to seventh in Saturday’s big wet, the #31 made a similar charge to the top five on Sunday.

Pitting six laps before the majority of the field in the first round of stops allowed Golding to undercut many rivals and become a contender.

In the end he held onto an impressive fifth place, which was his equal best result of the season.

Whilst being pleased with the strategy used to vault Golding up towards the front, PremiAir Nulon Racing Competition Director Ludo Lacroix is adamant there is so much more potential to unlock from the #31 with driver and engineer Romy Mayer.

“It was a great drive from Jimmy,” he said. 

“We had a good setup which lasted which is good, as that means that if we qualify poorly, which we did with Jimmy, at least we could play well in the long run, with a short strategy to undercut people and then go hard. 

“I am pretty pleased for him. He had another average weekend in term of qualifying pace.

“Not everything is on him, on our side we are probably still trying and searching for what is making him tick; he is unsettled, and Romy is not clear in terms of what he needs so it is difficult to give him what he needs. 

“For the race, we are probably more relating to what we know is going to work and we use set-up which we have done in Bathurst and a couple of races, where we know we have the length so we can actually pit early and go for a long race and that was positive.

“That was a fantastic P5, and so was overtaking Mostert at the end, we were stronger on tyres. 

“Unfortunately, we are not speaking of wins, we are not speaking of glory and trophies yet, but these are steps.”

Lacroix also opened up on what held Slade back with a number of dramas hurting the #23.

“Unfortunately for Timmy we had a good car for 10-15 laps and then we lost some bits,” he said.

“Then we had a fuel issue where the fuel was slow going in and we had to basically conserve fuel and that is not going fast, and we just made the end of the race.

“We need to understand why we were in that position, so, there are some positives and also some soul searching to do.”

Image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

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