Mobil 1 HSV Racing and Brad Jones Racing successfully completed their programs during a productive test outing at Winton.
The Supercars operations took up an opportunity to utilise one of three official test days from their season allocation at the Victorian circuit.
HSV Racing has been building up an arsenal of components to trial on its Commodores for James Courtney and Scott Pye, which have struggled so far this season.
Although hampered by a damp track for the first hour, the Clayton squad was able to evaluate a range of items on its cars.
The squad’s regular drivers were assisted throughout the day by Pirtek Enduro Cup pilots Warren Luff and Jack Perkins.
While shying away from making any bold assessments of the new parts on trial, interim team principal Mathew Nilsson is keen to analyse results at the team’s workshop this week.
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“We have got to go back through it but in terms of coming to test day prepared and working through a program, it has been successful from that perspective,” Nilsson told Speedcafe.com.
“I’m satisfied that we have come away with the key items we wanted to evaluate.
“It was predominantly chassis items to improve the overall grip and balance.
“I guess understeer is an issue we have suffered from but we came with list of things to try to cure that. It is a balancing act.
“In terms of performance it is very early to tell but like anything there are positives and negatives to a lot of the work we did.
“We will use the time between now and the test to analyse that ahead of Sydney Motorsport Park.
“I don’t want to comment at this stage as to if we are encouraged.
“There are too many examples where you go to a test day super excited and positive.
“We need the opportunity to go through everything and take it to another circuit and confirm what we have learned here. Winton can be unique.”
It proved a busy day for Brad Jones Racing with its Supercars and Dunlop Super2 Series cars all in action.
The cars ran smoothly as the operation focussed on set-ups while gathering further information regarding the new Dunlop tyre.
Main game drivers Nick Percat and Tim Blanchard shared their Commodores with Pirtek Enduro Cup pilots Macauley Jones and Todd Hazelwood, while Tim Slade’s co-driver Ash Walsh was unable to attend.
Macauley Jones also completed laps in his Dunlop Super2 car alongside team-mates Andrew Jones and Jack Smith.
Team owner Brad Jones admitted his outfit didn’t have any ‘revolutionary parts’ on its cars but declared the day productive.
“I don’t think we had any light bulb moments but we just worked through our test plan,” Jones told Speedcafe.com.
“We didn’t have anything that was revolutionary on the car.
“We were just trying number of different things and trying to understand the tyre/car combination better. It was a productive day.”
“I think we ticked off a few things that we wanted to,” Percat told Speedcafe.com.
“There is always things to try to make parts better and to understand what we are going to do with the next phase of the car.
“It was more about ticking off a few things and making sure we understand it well before going down a certain path.
“Between myself and Sladey’s (Tim Slade) car we got a fair bit done.”
The squads shared the track with Erebus Motorsport and Prodrive who fielded cars for Anton de Pasquale and Richie Stanaway.
Dunlop Super2 rising star de Pasquale conducted an evaluation day in David Reynolds’ Holden Commodore.
He was joined by Prodrive’s regular Super2 Series drivers Josh Kean and Garry Jacobson.
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