Rick Kelly is encouraged by the pace improvement from his Nissan Altima despite struggling with a stuck throttle which cost him a solid result in Race 11 at Darwin.

The Nissan Motorsport driver stormed to a first pole position in two years at the Hidden Valley Raceway which he converted into an early lead in the 42 lap race.

Kelly appeared on course for a possible top five finish before a slow pit stop dropped him down the order.

However, his race ultimately ended in disappointment when a stuck throttle struck, resulting in a heavy impact with the tyre wall at Turn 11.

While Kelly has endured barren run of 40 races without a podium, the 34-year-old is upbeat following an upturn in performance after a difficult start to the year for the Braeside squad.

“You’ve just got to focus on the things you can control and I couldn’t control what happened today, as everyone saw because I hit the fence,” Kelly joked.

“There’s nothing to be too disheartened about apart from making sure that whatever caused the problem doesn’t happen again.

“We aren’t fighting for a championship, we’re fighting for some great results.

“I’m sad we couldn’t bring home a result to boost the confidence of everyone at Nissan Motorsport because I think that right now that’s what we need, but we’ve got tomorrow to achieve that now and that’s what we’ll turn our focus to once we’ve fixed the car.”

Team manager Scott Sinclair is confident a fix will be put in place to avoid a repeat of the throttle issue.

“The issue with Rick was disappointing but we know what that is now so we will move on and look forward to tomorrow,” Sinclair told Speedcafe.com.

“It was just one of those things that got through the system and we will put something in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

“It was one of those unlucky things but we have got to make sure we are better than that.”