Tekno Autosports team manager Adrian Burgess believes a change in driving style is behind Jack Le Brocq’s breakout weekend at the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint.
The 25-year-old, who finished fourth as co-driver to Cameron Waters in the 2016 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, netted his best ever single-driver results in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship at Symmons Plains.
The Holden driver backed up his first solo top 10 on the Saturday with a fifth position in Sunday’s Race 8, while his raw pace was underlined by also qualifying in the top 10 for both races.
Le Brocq had to go through all three parts of Armor All Qualifying for Race 7 before eventually taking ninth, but earned direct passage to Part 2 on the Sunday and claimed fifth position on the grid.
“We always knew the kid’s got potential and clearly the car has,” Burgess told Speedcafe.com.
“We made some tough choices with driving style and some of the things that Jack was doing before coming here. At the moment it’s clearly reaping some benefits from changing what he’s doing.”
Heading into the weekend, the team asked Le Brocq to try braking with his right foot.
A left-foot braker for a number of years, Burgess admits it proved a contributing factor to some of the struggles the team had faced in the opening two rounds of the season.
“You can left foot brake successfully and a lot of people still do,” Burgess explained.
“But for us, we were struggling with synchronisation of the down changes and the throttle blips that we were introducing into the car, the timing wasn’t quite right and it was just giving us a bit of push in the braking area.
“The braking this weekend has been fantastic, we changed (three gearboxes) in the last two events because we weren’t getting the down-changes right and we were damaging the gearbox.”
“He’s a really good team player, we sit down and discuss everything as a team and he’s more than happy to come to the party if we’re strong in our conviction that we need him to change something, but he’s been doing it for a long time,” Burgess added.
“As long as we can show him the reasons why – this weekend is a clear example of that. He’s gone from left foot to right foot braking which is a big thing.
“Already, he fully understands why we ask him to do that and he can now appreciate his benefits in changing his style. The car’s much easier for him to drive.”
Le Brocq ran fifth for a large part of Race 8, including a long spell when he came under pressure from DJR Team Penske’s Fabian Coulthard, and was thrilled with his afternoon.
“I’m rapt. It’s awesome,” he said.
“(It’s) Pretty cool to even get a top 10 yesterday and to back it up today with another good qualifying and a top five is just awesome and a testament to all the guys.
“We worked pretty hard in the last couple weeks to turn it around. Now we’ve got to just keep moving forward.”
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