What the teams said: Supercars Race 10 Perth

“We had really good car speed. I don’t know what happened at lap 1 at Turn 7. I don’t know if there was stuff on the track or whatever, but we kept our head down,” he said.

“We had a really fast car at the end there when it was lighter and managed to close the gap on Chazzy. Bad luck to Chazzy with obviously the five-second penalty.”

Thomas Randle was also in the fight for a potential podium, sitting third, but he drifted back to fifth after a late clash with Will Brown.

“I’m pretty stoked to actually recover to fifth because the tyres were pretty flat spotted. To finish 5th after literally being in the dirt I think it’s not about recovery and like I said win for the team is excellent,” Randle said.

Chaz Mostert leads the field. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Walkinshaw Andretti United

Chaz Mostert took the chequered flag first in both races around Wanneroo, but was denied back to back wins due to a 5s penalty for an unsafe release in front of Randle.

But rather than blaming the crew, Mostert has put his hand up for the unsafe release after squeezing out in front of the #55 despite being told to merge behind.

“I’m a bit embarrassed to be disappointed with second, I made a small mistake in pit lane which cost us, but the car was super quick,” he said.

“We really deserved that win today, but I just made the wrong judgement call and I’ll own that.”

Ryan Wood impressed once again, qualifying fourth, but was forced to start seventh due to a penalty for blocking Winterbottom.

The rookie accepted the punishment and drove a steady race to eighth to complete a breakout weekend.

“We qualified well but an error on my end put me back to P7, really sorry to Frosty,” Wood said.

“We ran with a pretty bold strategy today taking two tyres and running on them for 35 laps, it was a great learning experience to understand tyre wear.”

Will Brown climbs onto the podium in Perth. Image: Supplied

Triple Eight Race Engineering

Will Brown carried on his extremely consistent start to 2024 with another podium, this time in third after emerging on top from a late scuffle with Randle.

Despite a 5s penalty for sending the #55 off, Brown had enough in hand to secure third and extend his championship lead to 136 points.

“Starting third, I didn’t get a very good start which is something we’re going to have to look at after this weekend because I struggled with them all weekend,” Brown said.

“My tyres started to get a bit hot and we dropped off a bit, but had a mega stop and was able to drive up and get Randle and had a pretty good exchange with him.

“I’m a bit disappointed that he ran off – I thought it was touch-and-go with who was at fault, but it is what it is.

“Overall, I think we consolidated very well with our points because I don’t think we had the fastest car.”

For the second day in a row Broc Feeney was left to fight hard as he didn’t have the pace to challenge the front runners.

Missed Q3 and started 12th before rising five spots to seventh.

“I had a pretty tough qualifying today. I missed out on Q3 which was really disappointing and we just seemed a bit off this morning,” he said.

“We need to have a look into it because it’s very hard in these short races to move forward a long way.

“For the race, disregarding the position we finished in, it was quite enjoyable. The first 10 laps were pretty fun because I think I passed four-or-so cars which was pretty cool.”

Will Davison speeding up the hill in the #17. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Dick Johnson Racing

Will Davison bounced back brilliantly from a tough Saturday to be up front all day Sunday.

Was one of the faster cars in qualifying before lining up sixth and progressed up to fourth in the race, falling less than a second short of another podium.

“Great to finish the weekend on a good note,” Davison said.

“We didn’t quite get it right in Q3, but there were really good signs in qualifying.

“We had a good, solid race, not quite enough speed, we were just shy of a podium, but it was an improvement on yesterday.”

Anton De Pasquale also felt like he had a better Sunday, progressing from eighth to sixth.

“It was a better day for us,” De Pasquale said.

“Not as high up as we probably could’ve been or wanted to be, but we moved a few spots forward in the race.

“We both had decent speed, so overall we got better and better every time we hit the track.”

Matt Payne leads teammate Richie Stanaway through Turn 3.

Penrite Racing

The Penrite Racing Mustangs battled over one-lap, but made solid progress in the race despite dropping from fourth to fifth in the teams championship.

Matt Payne started 16th, but roared his way into the top 10 and edged out David Reynolds to finish ninth.

“Not too bad of a Sunday for us, good points for the team and the championships,” Payne said.

“Overall, it’s been a trying weekend; we haven’t really had the speed we wanted.”

Richie Stanaway had a similar story, but just could quite make up the same amount of ground.

After crashing on Saturday he qualified 17th and rose to 12th, just ahead of rookie Love as one of the bigger movers in the field.

“It’s been a challenging weekend for us, but I feel like we have learned a lot,” Stanaway said.

“But the positive thing is that we have a lot of information and data to take away from the event, and I think we can use that as we move forward.”

David Reynolds waved the flag for Team 18. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Team 18

David Reynolds used up all of his tyres to progress to the final round of qualifying and it paid off.

He lined up ninth on the grid and held off Cameron Hill to cling onto a top 10 finish which was a boost having been on weakened rubber.

“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,” Reynolds said.

“In the race, we went for a much wider swing on the setup.

“It’s a much better finish and everyone’s much happier and it’s given us a good direction.”

It was a tough day for Supercars veteran Mark Winterbottom. Being 24th in Practice, 23rd in qualifying and 20th in the race.

“Frosty” was frustrated after being blocked by Wood during his hot lap in Q1 and struggled in the race.

“What a tough weekend. We came here with a lot of hope and just didn’t go our way. Today my qualifying car was actually quite decent, but traffic hurt us,” Winterbottom said.

“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.”

Cameron Hill gets some air going over the kerb at Turn 3. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Matt Stone Racing

Cameron Hill qualified 11th and finished 11th, but it was not so simple. Hill had a slow start and fell to 15th, but a late and fast stop on Lap 34 pushed the #4 back to the cusp of the top 10 and fell 0.9s short.

“I got a bad start but ultimately had a fast race car, a good strategy, and the team did an unreal job pit stop and we finished P11,” Hill said.

“I am really happy with how the weekend went.”

Nick Percat started qualifying thinking he could “fight for pole” but could only secure 18th on the grid.

A 15s penalty for spinning Le Brocq put Percat on the back foot and he never really recovered, finishing 21st.

“It was frustrating to be buried in the pack for the race as well as receiving a 15-second penalty,” he said.

“The car was fast in the race, and we took our penalty and caught the train back up which meant we took out 15 seconds on our competitors in pure speed.

“It was the one that got away.”

Home hero Aaron Love impressed on the Sunday at Perth. Image: Mark Horsburgh

Blanchard Racing Team

The youngest team on the grid walks away from Wanneroo with a spring in its step.

Rookie Aaron Love led the charge on Sunday, securing a career-best result of 13th ahead of teammate James Courtney.

“It’s been a tough start to the year but this was a positive weekend. We want more but there is lots of good stuff to take away from Perth,” BRT Team Principal Tim Blanchard said.

“Aaron Love is still finding his feet but there were lots of positives and he had a solid qualifying and raced well.

“We’re a new team and still getting everything in order, but this weekend we got back to a track where we had knowledge from last year and hopefully Darwin and Townsville will be the same from here.”

James Golding in the #31 Camaro at the top of the hill. Image: Supplied

PremiAir Nulon Racing

Tim Slade led the PremiAir charge by making Q3 but his race was derailed by a costly 15s time penalty for hitting Jaxon Evans in the pits.

He crossed the line 15th but was reclassified to 22nd and despite enjoying slightly better tyre life than Saturday, said there was still more to find.

“It was a bit of a difficult day on my side of the garage,” Slade said.

“We had not a bad qualifying being in the ten again but similar to yesterday we didn’t quite have the pace.

“Although the tyre life was a little better, so we have plenty to work on for next time.”

James Golding’s strategy to save tyres in qualifying didn’t pay off as he was the slowest in Q2. Made up some ground in the race to be 16th and retain 10th in the standings.

“I unfortunately missed out on the top ten in qualifying,” Golding said.

“We had saved a tyre set for the last run, but we didn’t make it in, so we didn’t get to use them there, but we put them towards the race.

“We tried to utilise those green tyres, but we didn’t quite have the car beneath us today. Still managed to peel off a couple of cars and had a couple of good battles.”

It is back to the drawing board for BJR after Andre Heimgartner’s P15 was its best on Sunday.

Brad Jones Racing

BJR headed to Perth with high hopes after victory in Taupo but battled in WA with Andre Heimgartner slipping from 13th to 15th.

“Tough day but overall could have been worse,” Heimgartner said.

“Just lacked qualifying speed, qualified 15th again and then start of the race really struggled but had a good solid second stint.”

Bryce Fullwood was passed by his teammate Heimgartner late in the piece, dropping from 15th to 17th on a weekend where he lost his engineer due to a delayed flight.

“We learned a little bit in qualifying, which I think is really positive. I think that’s been a weakness for us, no question,” Fullwood said.

“I think the car was quite good and it was pretty speedy but unfortunately, we just chose the wrong strategy and slipped down the order.”

Jaxon Evans was holding position until the pit cycle where as he went to enter the box, copped a hit from the rejoining Golding.

The unexpected whack damaged his rear toe-link and hurt his race, finishing 18th.

“I felt like this morning was a step forward in the right direction,” Evans said.

“Had a poor start in the race and then had some contact in the pit lane with another car, so suffered from there.”

Macauley Jones was slowest in qualifying and was disappointed with his one-lap effort, despite making some ground in the race to finish 19th.

“Really disappointed with qualifying,” he said.

“That’s probably our key focus at the moment, race car was okay, held on to it’s tyres alright but it’s very hard joint to pass and we all just kind of ended up in a line to be honest.”

Brodie Kostecki walks away from his #1 Camaro.

Erebus Motorsport

Sunday at the Perth SuperSprint ended up being a disaster for defending Supercars champions Erebus Motorsport.

It was going so well for reigning Supercars champion Brodie Kostecki, who qualified sixth and was looking strong in fifth until suddenly it was all over on Lap 19 due to an engine issue.

“We were looking pretty good against ht scars in front of us. The car was pretty speedy and unfortunate it dropped all of its water,” Kostecki said.

It was also a cruel day for Jack Le Brocq. The #9 started down in 22nd, but had a strong start, flying up five spots.

However, all of this progress was undone when he was spun by Percat and Le Brocq ultimately finished a lap down, with Erebus slipping from third to eighth in the teams championship.

“It was a tough one. Made up five spots off the start nd got turned around and that was our day,” Le Brocq said.

“The cars are fast but Perth was not nice to us.”

The Supercars return at the Darwin Triple Crown on June 14-16.

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