Practice pace-setter Fabian Coulthard says that he is unsure where the field really lies on pace given Triple Eight’s struggles on the opening day of the WD-40 Phillip Island SuperSprint.
The Red Bull Holden Racing Team, on the other hand, faced a zero sum gain at the end of the session which sets the starting order for tomorrow’s knockout Armor All Qualifying session, when Shane van Gisbergen came from deep in the order to knock Jamie Whincup out of 10th position by 0.0101s.
Both were outdone by Triple Eight Race Engineering customer Matt Stone Racing as Todd Hazelwood put Whincup’s old ZB Commodore eighth fastest, leading the seven-time champion to quip, “those guys are doing a better job than we are at the moment so we’ve got to pull our finger out.”
Coulthard therefore believes that the timesheets are not necessarily reflective of each team’s true pace despite the DJR Team Penske Mustangs being more than a quarter of a session quicker than the rest.
“They’ve always been the benchmark, they’re a quality team around this place, they are the leading Holden team so to speak,” he explained.
“Obviously Todd’s done an awesome job here, (but) for them not to be up here is a little bit of an unknown.”
McLaughlin had a similar view, suggesting that Triple Eight may have simply had a bad session.
“I think, like Fabs said, it’s hard to sort of say where everyone’s at,” he reasoned.
“I think Todd’s done a fantastic job in a Holden but Triple Eight obviously haven’t done the best session in their whole world in that run, so it’s hard to sort of gauge where we’re at.”
Both drivers from the Stapylton outfit were quietly confident in their packages, which Coulthard took to a 1:30.1807s just moments after McLaughlin crossed the control line to set a 1:30.1867s near the end of Practice 2.
The pair had finished Practice 1 in 13th and fourth respectively.
“It’s a good start,” said Coulthard.
“The boys did a good job turning the car around from P1 to P2.
“The car was just a lot more predictable. I was really struggling with push in that first practice and through all the tighter stuff it was okay, it was just the high speed stuff that we really struggled.
“In that one (Practice 2), it was much better, improved a lot, so it’s sort of back to what I expected.”
McLaughlin added, “Today we’ve had a pretty solid day, we just ran race runs in that first session this morning and then we did a qual run to the end.
“It was overall pretty good. Fabs he hit the nail on the head; we’ve got a little bit to work through overnight but I think we’ve got a really good package for tomorrow morning.
“There are little bits and pieces where Fabs is better than me and I’m better than him in other places, so I’m sure if we put it all together there’s probably a little bit there.
“Who knows how much, but I think we can absolutely definitely improve. That’s what you always strive (for); hopefully we don’t tune it backwards though.”
Practice 3 starts tomorrow at 1040 local time/AEST before the bottom 14 cars from Practice 2 will head out for Part 1 of Armor All Qualifying at 1315.
Discussion about this post