The 2017 Super2 Series winner has been drafted into a brand-new #99 Chevrolet Camaro in place of Brodie Kostecki for at least the first event of the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship, having been earmarked as Jack Le Brocq’s enduro co-driver.
Hazelwood said on the eve of practice at the Thrifty Bathurst 500 that he was embracing the pressure of filling in the for 2023 championship-winning driver in the 2023 championship-winning team, and arguably lived up to that pressure on Day 1 at Mount Panorama.
Hazelwood’s exploits in the latter session also came with the added challenge of a one-lap shootout to conclude proceedings after a late red flag, on a track still perilously wet off-line.
“Any day you’ve got your bum in the back of a race car’s a good day,” he said.
“So, just taking every lap and every opportunity that I get in front of me, to take it with both hands and obviously really fortunate to be strapped into a car that’s more than capable, the team’s more than capable, and really fortunate to have some fantastic engineers and mechanics and staff behind the scenes that have provided me a fantastic chassis.
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“The TFH Hire 99 was pretty hooked up out there [in] both conditions, both in the wet and the dry.
“I felt really comfortable – I wasn’t really taking too many risks or anything like that – so, from a driver perspective, when you can put a lap together around… Obviously, The Mountain, we all know how tough it is put a lap around here at the best of times, so when you can do it confidently and comfortably in both conditions and be towards the top of the timesheets, it’s always a shot in the arm full of confidence.
“We’ll keep building, we’ll keep learning. I’m still very early in the piece of it all, I’m still learning at a million miles an hour of understanding the set-up philosophy, understanding how the whole team works and how we make these cars go fast.
“So, it’s been a big day, two very different conditions, obviously the start of the day being pretty hot and breezy.
“Yeah, information overload at the moment and just trying to process it, to be honest.”
As it stands, Hazelwood has only been confirmed in the Erebus squad for this weekend’s Bathurst 500 and the enduros, notwithstanding that Kostecki is not expected to be back in one of its Camaros.
Nevertheless, the South Australian is not letting himself become preoccupied with the possibility of a Hollywood result which might firm up his future.
“I’m not really trying to focus on winning races or being on a podium,” he remarked.
“Obviously, that’s always the goal and the objective, but I’m just trying to put my best foot forward and do the best job.
“Now, wherever that lands me, I don’t know. It’s a new season, new changes to the cars there’s so many changes up and down pit lane with drivers, personnel… You name it, there’s so much going on.
“Until we put the cars in qualifying tomorrow, everyone’s in full fast race pace trim, who knows where we’re going to end up, to be fair?
“I always say, never count your chickens until they hatch, so we’ll see how we go tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be up here again, which would be cool.
“But, if not, we’ll just keep chipping away at it and just take it one day at a time, to be honest.”
Qualifying for Race 1 starts tomorrow at 10:20 local time/AEDT.
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