Hot and windy conditions contributed to the sedate pace seen on the Car of the Future’s Bathurst debut, believe the category’s top drivers.
Track temperatures soared towards 40 degrees in the afternoon at Mount Panorama, while the wind proved to hamper drivers as they chased car balance during the sessions.
Whincup’s practice-topping best of 2:08.3s proved more than 0.7s quicker than next fastest man Mark Winterbottom, but was a full second adrift of last year’s Thursday best.
“That’s the biggest issue we had for all cars today,” said Whincup of the conditions.
“I know everyone’s looking at that lap time to see how it compares (to last year) – it was purely the heat and of course a little bit of the wind.
“Don’t write COTF off yet. Remember that the previous car we’d been here with for 10 or 12 years in a row and really refined that car around this track.”
Added Winterbottom: “It was a bit of a challenge because the track was probably not in the best nick.”
Reynolds, third fastest today, concurred with his colleagues’ assessment, despite being unhappy with his car.
“As soon as I drove out of pit lane today, I was probably a little bit disappointed,” the Ford Performance Racing driver reflected.
“I talked to most of the drivers and they all said the same thing; it was completely different to the old cars.”
Whether permitting, Whincup believes that 2:07s will be achievable with the new cars this weekend, but stopped short of predicting any threats to team-mate Craig Lowndes’ 2010 practice record of 2:06.8s.
“I’m not going to give you an exact number, but obviously if conditions are cooler then it’s going to go faster,” he said.
“It’s such a long lap, so if the track temp’s 10 degrees cooler then it could allay to quite a bit over 22 corners.”
