Jack Le Brocq walked away from Race 23 with his equal best finish this season, though the Truck Assist Racing driver might have finished higher if not for a slow start.
Le Brocq was the highest placed starter in eighth to begin the 32-lapper on soft compound tyres while the lion’s share of those around him (22 of 26 in total) began the race on hard compound tyres.
A sluggish getaway saw the 29-year-old cede positions immediately, although he quickly began working his way forward before the pit stop sequence.
Le Brocq would finish the race on the hard compound tyres, falling from fourth after the pit stop sequence to sixth after losing out to Brad Jones Racing pair Nick Percat and Todd Hazelwood.
“[Saturday] was solid for us, probably one of our better days of the season so far,” said Le Brocq.
“We were thereabouts and well within the top 10 all day which was positive, and the boys made a good bit of progress across the day so it went pretty well to plan.
“My race start was pretty average and that probably hurt our end result, but the car was solid, I got a real good stop from the boys, and our pace was pretty decent all night.
“I was really hoping to hold onto fifth at the end, but being on the hard tyre made it tough to defend.
“Still sixth is a good way to start the weekend.”
That sixth place equalled Le Brocq’s best finish of the season, which came at the season-opening Mount Panorama 500 in Race 1.
After Le Brocq, team-mate Cameron Waters was the next best of the Tickford Racing entries in eighth while James Courtney and Thomas Randle were 15th and 22nd respectively.
“Since the last race last weekend my car has been starting to feel like my car again, and we made some more progress [on Saturday] which is positive,” said Waters.
“I got a good start and that really set up our race, had a small hiccup in our stop but I’m not sure that hurt us too much, and I think I used up my tyres a bit moving up towards the end, that probably kept us from making more ground in the closing laps.
“Eighth isn’t too bad, definitely better than where we were this time last week, but that being said we don’t do this job to come eighth, so there’s plenty of room for improvement and we’ll keep working hard to get more out of it.”
Supercars is on track for back-to-back qualifying sessions to set the grid for Race 24 and Race 25 at 14:30 local time/AEDT.