What the teams said – Sydney Supercars practice
There was a lot to unpack for teams after the massive standalone 90-minute practice session at Sydney and hear what they had to say.
Walkinshaw Andretti United – P1 Ryan Wood P3 Chaz Mostert
Ryan Wood topped the time for Friday at the 2024 Sydney SuperNight. Image: Peter Norton
WAU has raced out of the blocks with both cars in the top three led by rookie Ryan Wood, who topped a Supercars session for the first time in his career.
“Feeling pretty confident going into tomorrow. It’s a nice way to end tonight,” said Wood.
“We’ve been hanging around for a while to drive the race cars, and it’s nice to come out pretty strong.
“My eyes took, like, probably 20 minutes to adjust fully, then did my race run and started to really figure out what it took, the concentration is pretty high.
“Really happy and we’ll press on for the rest of the weekend.”
Matt Stone Racing – P2 Nick Percat P5 Cameron Hill
Nick Percat was second fastest in the opening night of the 2024 Sydney SuperNights. Photo: Supplied
MSR was another squad with impressive pace with both Nick Percat and Cam Hill in the top five and they were fast throughout the 90 minutes.
“Credit to the MSR boys, they went over this car top to bottom in trying to find a little bit of speed from Townsville and we found that,” Percat said.
“We found that and they fixed it and its back to feeling really, really good.”
Triple Eight – P4 Will Brown P10 Broc Feeney
Will Brown driving under the setting sun. Image: Peter Norton
At another track Triple Eight has a fine record at, it has got off to a steady, but unspectacular start with both cars in the top 10 but being more than two tenths down want more.
“I feel like we’re in the mix. Obviously, being in the top five is great after Practice 1 and although I don’t feel like we maximised it at the end there,” Brown said.”We’ve got a few things we need to look at overnight.”
I felt like we got through our test program pretty well. We made a lot of changes and felt pretty competitive. But we put another set of tyres on and really struggled,” Feeney said.
“I think we’re somewhat in the mix. We need to have a look at the first half of the session and then our green run at the end.”
Tickford – P6 Cam Waters P11 Tom Randle P23 Lochie Dalton
Lochie Dalton driving a Supercar for the first time. Image: Supplied
It was a big day for Tickford returning to a three-car squad with the addition of wildcard Lochie Dalton, who stayed out of trouble and got an equal session high 38 laps under his belt, while both Waters and Randle showed flashes of pace.
“We rolled out well in the 90-minute practice. We had a plan we stuck to throughout the session and learnt quite a lot which was great. I think we are better than what we are in the time sheets. We’ll step it forward for tomorrow” Waters said.
“Long practice, it was good to run through our program. We had a slight issue on the front end in our race run, probably can’t read too much into that but the boys got it rectified. I probably didn’t maximize the green run at the end. I think we’re in the ten or their abouts. Need to find a little bit more and we’ll be good for qualifying tomorrow” Randle said.
“I’m not feeling too bad after the first session. I was getting use to the car again after being in the Super 2 car. Wish I’d pieced it together better, but it’s all learning. It was a hard session as you couldn’t get out and look over the data. If we can put it all together tomorrow it looks pretty good” Dalton said.
Brad Jones Racing – P7 Andre Heimgartner P22 Bryce Fullwood P24 Macauley Jones P25 Jaxon Evans
Bryce Fullwood and Richie Stanaway produce something out of Star Wars. Image: Supplied
Waving the flag for BJR was Heimgartner, who showed a glimpse of his previous SMP form but his teammates were all more than a second off the pace.
“So interesting day. A challenging start to the session for us but made some good tunes and hit in the right direction. I think the race car was quite good, but the game has changed a bit from last year,” Heimgartner said.
“Tough day for us here today in the 14. I just had a few sort of Gremlins at the start of the session there that we sort of couldn’t get worked out. A little bit odd to be honest,” Fullwood said.
“Really good session, it’s nice to do night racing. I really like it. It’s a cool concept and hopefully the fans love it too. Need a bit of work on the drawing board to figure some stuff out,” Jones said.
“Little bit of work to do. Obviously learning again been six or seven years since I last drove here. Feeling like we’re making forward progress, got to try and keep it between the white lines and not do any track limits. So I guess the timing sheets aren’t representative of where where we ultimately were,” Evans said.
Erebus Motorsport – P12 Brodie Kostecki P16 Jack Le Brocq
Jack Le Brocq hopes to find more speed today. Image: Peter Norton
Erebus Motorsport did not have an ideal day with Brodie Kostecki showing early pace before reporting more steering dramas, while Jack Le Brocq was eight tenths off.
“Big night for our crew with some changes to Jack’s bus and then throwing the kitchen sink at the #1 to chase down the “goof” for Brodie. She’s basically a new rig now so let’s see what we can do,” was a team statement post practice on social media.
Team 18 – P14 Mark Winterbottom P20 David Reynolds
Mark Winterbottom leaves a trail of flames. Image: Mark Horsburgh
After 90 minutes both experienced Team 18 drivers are searching for more speed from their Camaros.
“ Pretty tough session, but there’s traits of the car I really like and there’s traits of the car I really dislike, so we’ll try and keep the good bits and improve the bad bits and I think if we can do that, we’re going to be up the front,” Winterbottom said.
“It wasn’t a bad day, 90 minute session. Overall, we just don’t have enough pace in our car, it’s hard to turn the tyre on and get the most out of it. In the session we tried some ergo stuff at the start that we had to reverse, which maybe cost us a bit of time. We rifled some changes and we improved the car and got it better to drive, but we’re still a little bit off the pace, and we missed the last run because something broke in the rear end,” Reynolds said.
PremiAir – P18 Tim Slade P21 James Golding
James Golding spits some flames in Sydney. Image: Supplied
PremiAir got to as high as ninth on the timesheets but drifted down the order in what was described as a “puzzling session.”
“I thought we were not too bad at the start on the used tyre. I felt as though the first change we made was positive; after that I didn’t get too much of a read and then on the green tyre I had no grip,” Slade said.
“It was not a great session for us, we struggled to get a direction with the car and didn’t roll out anywhere near anything that we were looking for,” Golding said.
Supercars return with qualifying at 14.50 AEST.
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