David Reynolds has confirmed Penrite Racing’s wholesale change to the car with a berth in Sunday’s Top 10 Shootout at the NTI Townsville 500.
Following a lacklustre showing in Race 19 yesterday, team principal David Cauchi alluded to taking a calculated risk that could improve the team’s form on Sunday.
That has paid off for one of the Grove Racing cars at least, with Reynolds scraping into the shootout with a 10th place in this morning’s qualifying session.
“Yesterday we just missed out, we were 11th, and today we were 10th,” he said.
“We have changed the car quite dramatically overnight, we have taken a step in the right direction I think, but we had that part in our car the whole of practice and whole of the race yesterday, so it’s almost like we’re starting again.
“We need to rebalance and retune our car from where it is now but there’s still hope for us.”
On the other side of the garage, Lee Holdsworth only managed 22nd in qualifying, pointing to more work that needs to be done on Car #10.
Expanding on the overnight changes, Reynolds said the feel of the car on Saturday was so bad that any change was going to yield a step forward.
“You might not get the most out of it but it was so bad yesterday that anything was going to be a bit better,” he added.
“It felt better but we’re still working on it”
The Top 10 Shootout begins at 12:00 local time/AEST to finalise the grid for Race 20 at 14:45.