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De Pasquale determined to reward team effort

De Pasquale heading to Griffin's Bend

By Thomas Miles

It has not been the easiest weekend for Team 18, but Anton De Pasquale and Harri Jones hope to reward them with a big result on Bathurst Day.

The #18 Camaro has been consistently in the top 10 throughout the weekend despite a heavy 56G impact for Jones on Thursday.

De Pasquale and Jones will start the Great Race from ninth after the former by his own admission, did not nail his Shootout lap.

“I just didn’t turn the tyre on,” De Pasquale told Auto Action.

“Once we got going, I had lost half a second in the first sector, so that took us out of contention, and we were obviously nowhere pole.”

An impressive aspect of the #18 side of the garage has been the team’s ability to not only rebuild the Camaro following Jones’ crash, but maintain its pace.

Last year, David Reynolds looked fast until he had a heavy qualifying crash, and the speed never returned after the rebuild.

De Pasquale said the biggest driving factor this weekend is rewarding the crew that stayed up until 4 am.

“You always worry because you never know what damage you will get when you hit the wall hard,” he said.

“Luckily, it was not anything terminal and everything could be replaced and squared up.

“The team did an awesome job getting it back to where it was before.

“Then we could use the previous date points, and we could keep on tuning.

“They have done a great job and it was rewarding to be part of the Shootout for them, but just didn’t do a very good job of it.”

Looking ahead to the Great Race, De Pasquale sees himself as an outside contender.

“Anyone is within a shot, especially with weather around,” he said.

“We have had a fast car off and on throughout, but there are some faster cars which showed in the shootout. We will try to catch them.”

Image:Mark Horsburgh

2025 Bathurst 1000 schedule

Thursday, October 9
PRACTICE 1 1: R. Wood/J. Ojeda 2:05.1029 2: A. De Pasquale/H. Jones +0.4236 3: K. Allen/D. Wood +0.8132

PRACTICE 2 1: Scott Pye/W. Brown 2:06.8395 2: David Russell/J. Golding +0.1461 3: Tony D’Alberto/W. Davison +0.6345
Friday, October 10
PRACTICE 3 1: B.Feeney/J.Whincup 2:04.9763 2: R.Wood/J.Ojeda +0.0341 3: W.Brown/S.Pye +0.0784

PRACTICE 4 1: C. Mostert/F. Coulthard 2:04.6591 2: N. Percat/T. Slade +0.0754 3: B. Kostecki/T. Hazelwood +0.1210

QUALIFYING 1 Brodie Kostecki 2:04.0307 2 Broc Feeney +0.0064 3 Ryan Wood +0.0560

Saturday, October 11
PRACTICE 5 1: Scott Pye 2:05.6647 2: Jamie Whincup +0.0442 3: Mark Winterbottom +0.3516

PRACTICE 6 1: B.Feeney/J.Whincup 2:04.9698 2: C.Mostert/F.Coulthard +0.1463 3: C.Waters/M.Winterbottom +0.3354

TOP TEN SHOOTOUT 1 Brodie Kostecki 2:04.0413 2 Cameron Waters +0.1760 3 Chaz Mostert +0.3169

Bathurst Day, October 12
WARM UP 8:30 AM – 8:50 AM
THE GREAT RACE 11:45 AM (161 laps)

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