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Penrite Racing can proceed with its enduro testing programme today safe in the knowledge that foreign recruit Kevin Estre is already up to speed, according to Team Principal David Cauchi.
The Frenchman is pairing up with Matt Payne for this year’s Penrite Oil Sandown 500 and Repco Bathurst 1000 with the squad’s previous ‘foreign’ driver, European-based Queenslander Matt Campbell, unavailable due to a date clash with his IMSA commitments.
In a sense, Estre is a like-for-like replacement for Campbell, given both are factory Porsche drivers who are part of Penske Hypercar programmes, although the former’s is in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
However, one already has four Bathurst 1000 starts to his name whereas the other had not driven a Supercar until he undertook what was officially an Evaluation Day in the past 24 hours at Winton.
With that out of the way, the usual enduro prep is on the cards today.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go through more of the pit stop practice, driver changes… all those kinds of things, and then we’ll run through a performance plan with Matt as well,” Cauchi told Speedcafe.
“The fact that Kevin’s already up to speed with the car, it means we can get on with those programmes straight away, so it’s really, really encouraging.”
Estre did have two offs during the day and Payne experienced one of his own in the handful of laps he was allowed to complete as part of an evaluation.
Cauchi put the 24 Hours of Le Mans (class) winner’s mishaps down to pushing the limits in an unfamiliar track and car, laughing that, “I think he pulled the radio paddle a few times expecting to change gears.”
However, the three-time championship-winning engineer hailed how quickly Estre in fact came to terms with a Gen3 Ford Mustang.
“Just his ability to learn quickly,” replied Cauchi when asked about what impressed him the most about how the 34-year-old went about the task.
“Obviously, these cars are quite different to the cars that they drive sort of week in, week out, but it’s just how fast he can adapt to our cars.
“Even by, sort of, 11 o’clock, he was on the pace and then just slowly took out the last few bits and was just getting better and better.”
Estre was even back to heeling and toeing for the first time in around a decade.
“It was quite tough at the start, thinking about the blip – heel-and-toe – driving on the right side, the gear change which is very different to what I’m used to…” he recounted.
“It was tough but I think we made good progress. I understood well what the car needs; now I just need to put it together.
“I think it was a good first test day for me to get a feel, get to know the car, the team, and what I should give for feedback.
“So, I feel good, I feel confident for the rest of the testing and what the race brings in 10 days.”
Payne/Estre and team-mates David Reynolds/Garth Tander are set to test today at Winton along with all of the other southern-based teams, while all of the Sunshine state-based entries will be in action at Queensland Raceway, where Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Supercheap Auto wildcard resumed testing yesterday.
