Mostert puts Supersoft struggles behind WAU shocker
Walkinshaw Andretti United went from being at the front in Perth to the back in Darwin and Chaz Mostert believes battles with the Supersoft tyre could be why.
Mostert and WAU teammate Ryan Wood will start 22nd and 24th respectively in Saturday’s first 48-lap race of the 2024 Darwin Triple Crown.
It is a familiar position for the team, which also struggled to qualify at Hidden Valley 12 months ago.
On that occasion Mostert qualified 17th, 24th and 25th, but still raced his way inside the top 10 twice.
Going into the return to Darwin, Mostert circled understanding the Supersoft tyre would be the key and it is clear WAU’s fears have come true with a tough Friday.
As a result, Mostert is bracing himself for a long night in the debrief room.
“A bit of a concern coming into the weekend was the Supersoft tyre and clearly our cars are not in the window with that,” he told Mark Larkham on Fox Sports.
“On this tyre with this car we are just missing the philosophy of it.
“Obviously gutted we are not in the top 10 shootout after what we did in Perth but we are pretty thankful we will have a practice session tomorrow.
“These are the days that you try to build a championship and when you have a bad one it is about how you bounce back.
“We will work extremely hard tonight and will probably have a late debrief.
“We changed a lot from the practice to qualifying with the same net result performance wise so we are missing something.
“We just had no response from the car in practice and had no grip, so we clearly missed the mark.
“We chucked a few things at the car in qualifying and it got worse.
“(Engineer) Sam (Scaffidi) is really good at looking at things run to run and will try the other way. “We will have to get our elbows out.”
Darwin Triple Crown (ACST)
Friday, June 14
1: W. Brown 1:06.4153 2: J. Golding +0.0156 3: J. Le Brocq +0.0518
1: J. Golding 1:05.6912 2: N. Percat +0.0742 3: M. Winterbottom +0.1515
Saturday, June 15
9.35 Practice 2
11.35 Top 10 Shootout
15.10 Race 11 (48 laps)
Sunday, June 16
10.25 Qualifying
11.35 Top 10 Shootout
15.10 Race 12 (48 laps)
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