Triple Eight Team Manager Mark Dutton has outlined the nature of the issue experienced by Shane van Gisbergen in the chassis which was benched for the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight.
After handling niggles in consecutive events at Hidden Valley and Townsville, the #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing entry switched from chassis 888A-060 to 888A-063, the latter having been used as the #888 Supercheap Auto wildcard.
888A-060 had been damaged when van Gisbergen was bumped off the road and into a tyre wall in Race 11 of the season at Symmons Plains, an event which immediately preceded that of Hidden Valley.
Dutton believes that was merely coincidental, although Triple Eight Race Engineering was set to get a back-to-back comparison given both chassis would be in action at yesterday’s ride day at Sydney Motorsport Park.
All going well, the two-time Bathurst 1000 is set to switch back to 888A-060 now.
“We don’t think it’s a lingering [issue from Symmons Plains]; it’s more of a little bit of a wear issue and the parts being manufactured at the extents of their tolerances,” explained Dutton after Race 19 at ‘Eastern Creek’.
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“We don’t want to have a chassis that you deem to be unfit, so tomorrow we’ll test it and we think it’ll have a clean bill of health.
“We were in the very, very fortunate position to have a chassis to be able to swap into that was the only reason we did that; just belts and braces.
“We knew we couldn’t roll out with even half a percent of doubt in our mind, and given that we had the opportunity to roll out with a car that Shane did do a couple of laps in at the wildcard test, why wouldn’t you do it?”
He described the Hidden Valley and Townsville events as a “difficult” period.
“I’ve got to thank the guys,” said the three-time champion.
“They’ve done so much work trying to understand what the problem I’ve been having is with the steering in the car.
“I drove out on the wildcard test day [in the wildcard chassis] and the car was completely different.
“So, we knew there was something to find, we think we’ve found it in the other car, so it will be good in the ride day to verify it.
“It’s been a difficult couple of months, I guess, but yeah, I remembered how to drive this weekend, it feels like.
“It’s been difficult.”
Van Gisbergen is now up to third in the drivers’ championship, 54 points behind Brodie Kostecki and 13 behind Will Brown.
He and Kostecki are off to race in the NASCAR Cup Series at Indianapolis on the weekend of Sunday, August 13, before returning to Australia for the OTR SuperSprint at The Bend a week later.
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