The Holden Racing Team will continue with its revamped engineering line-up at the upcoming Castrol Edge Townsville 400.
Holden’s factory team elected to change both race engineers prior to the recent Hidden Valley meeting as part of efforts to turn around its troubled season.
Although Darwin proved tough going for both James Courtney and Garth Tander, the former provided a glimmer of hope for the squad with fifth in the Sunday race.
Courtney says he’s looking forward to building on the work in Townsville following an extensive post-Darwin debrief.
“There’s been a lot of interesting stuff come out of it,” Courtney told Speedcafe.com of the fall-out from Hidden Valley, where Rob Starr took over from his previous engineer Alistair McVean.
“It’s definitely a different dynamic in there now so hopefully it starts churning out results for Garth and I.
“Alistair is still there working in the background coming up with a few things that he could see being on the other side of the fence now, not involved in the whole emotion of the racing side of things.”
The HRT is expected to put on an improved showing in Townsville due to its affinity with street circuits.
Courtney won on the streets of Adelaide earlier this year, while the team has scored at least one podium finish each year in Townsville since the event began in 2009.
Although hopeful of a competitive performance, Courtney says the team must be realistic with its short term goals as it continues efforts to understand its package.
Courtney’s Sunday result at Hidden Valley came after the team elected to drop its twin-spring damper, which Courtney admits is one of a number of areas where the team needs to improve.
“I still think it’s pretty cloudy as to what’s needed and what will be the key for us moving forward,” he said of the car’s development
“I don’t think it’s one big component, I think it’s a lot of little tiny things that aren’t right.
“There are a lot of things like that (the twin-spring) that have been in our car for a long time but no one is really sure of exactly how it works or why it’s in there.
“That’s what’s happening at the moment, unwinding a lot of that stuff.
“Garth and I come in and say what we feel is happening with the car, but we’re not engineers or designers or anything so we can only give what we can.
“We (the drivers) are still saying the same thing so it’s not a mixed message. We know the area of the corner that we’re struggling with.
“It’s just them identifying the area of the car where we can improve that, which is the frustrating thing.”
Courtney and Tander sit 10th and 11th in the championship respectively heading to Townsville on July 8-10.
Discussion about this post