Tim Blanchard is confident of scoring his second top 10 finish of the season at Bathurst despite Dick Johnson Racing’s event build-up being dominated by repair work.
Blanchard’s #17 Ford is currently undergoing the final stages of its rebuild following co-driver Ash Walsh’s 175km/h clout of the Turn 6 tyre wall during the Sandown 500.
The chassis made a brief trip to the headquarters of its constructor, Pace Innovations, last week, where the chassis damage – which included bent tubing around the front-right damper mount – was repaired.
With the hit having proven less catastrophic than first thought, the car required just a single day at Pace, bypassing its chassis jig in the process.
The sister Chaz Mostert/Dale Wood entry is also undergoing a refresh at the Paul Ceprnich-owned workshop before Bathurst; the team taking the opportunity to attend to minor damage sustained earlier in the season.
“It’s never ideal when you have to cut the car up, but the quick turnaround at Pace meant that the guys at DJR have plenty of time to put it back together properly for Bathurst,” Blanchard told Speedcafe.com of his car.
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“Bathurst is going to be a tough weekend for Ash after what happened at Sandown, but he’ll get a lot of laps in the Dunlop Series to get his confidence back up.
“All year we’ve been saying that our pace over longer stints has been good, it’s just that our poor qualifying has really hurt under the sprint race formats.
“I think over a long day at Bathurst, a top 10 finish is a very realistic target.”
A former Australian Formula Ford Champion and Dunlop Series front-runner, Blanchard has had a tough first full-time season in the V8 Supercars Championship.
Sitting 26th in points heading to Bathurst, qualifying has been a particular struggle, with an average starting position of 24.6 the worst of any in the 28 car field.
A marginal improvement in speed, however, across the three events since his car underwent a complete mid-season overhaul has the 26-year-old encouraged.
“Given the way that DJR was at the beginning of the year, the car was put together pretty quickly, and we found a few little things there which I think have helped,” he said of the work undertaken prior to the Coates Hire Ipswich 360.
“We changed our tack a bit in the way we engineer the car, and have changed my driving style as well to try and suit the car a little better.
“We’ve done a lot of work trying to get some confidence back in the car because I’ve run at the front in the junior categories and know that I’m capable of being competitive at this level.
“My confidence took a fair beating in the first half of the year but it’s changed dramatically in the last three rounds.”
The #17 Ford’s only top 10 finish of the season to date came at Winton last month courtesy of a ninth in the final race of the weekend.
Blanchard has been in the peculiar situation this year of having his team-mate Mostert and corresponding race engineer, Adam De Borre, undertaking separate debriefs with Ford Performance Racing.
Mostert has proven a sensation since joining the championship in May, taking DJR to an unlikely victory in the final race at Queensland Raceway.
Although Mostert’s FPR relationship appears to leave Blanchard in a difficult position, he insists that the added input from the factory team has on the whole been a positive.
“I wouldn’t say it’s ideal and it caused a few headaches initially, but Adam has been good for both of us,” he said.
“I think we’ve worked it within our team to a situation where I don’t think it’s much of an advantage for Chaz over me anymore. They don’t keep any secrets on that side.”
DJR has been further boosted in recent weeks by the addition of senior FPR engineer Campbell Little to its workshop based staff.
Still operating on a thin budget following its pre-season woes, Little is assisting the team develop its package, which showed an improved turn of straightline speed at Sandown.
The lack of clarity over the future of Mostert and the Dean Fiore-owned Racing Entitlements Contract that the #12 Ford currently runs under ensures there are still plenty of question marks surrounding the team heading into 2014.
Blanchard is hopeful, though, that there’ll be minimal changes for next year.
“We haven’t had any formal discussions with anyone as of yet, but my goal is definitely to stay at DJR,” he said.
“We’ve been through the tough times during the first half of this year and I think it’s now starting to come together.”
