Tim Slade has described his shakedown in the second Gen3 PremiAir Racing Chevrolet Camaro at Queensland Raceway today as “awesome”.
Slade shook down his #23 Chevrolet Camaro at the 3.12km circuit in Ipswich, marking his first significant running for the Gold Coast-based squad.
In regards to the running of his own car, the two-time Supercars race winner described the shakedown as ‘straightforward.’
“It ran faultlessly all day, which was awesome,” Slade told Speedcafe.com.
“I spent it getting comfortable in the car, given that it’s a new layout, seat pedals, steering wheel, whatever else.
“I spent it getting used to that, refining little things and then just slowly learning set-up-wise with the car.
“We did a bit of everything, to be honest, we did a few short runs and changed a few things to get an understanding of how those changes affect the balance of the car and then some longer runs to see what the car does over that distance.
“Yeah, it was all sweet.”
Feedback on tyre degradation
Slade commented that the Gen3 cars are noticeably more difficult to drive, when the tyres start to degrade.
“They use the rear tyre a lot harder, so I’m not sure whether that means we end up driving around slower to a number to try and keep the tyre going for as long as possible,” he added.
“When the grip does go away, it’s harder to drive.
“Hopefully the new car achieves all the objectives that they want it to.”
While relatively pleased with the hit-out, the 37-year-old acknowledged that there is progress to be made.
“There’s a long list of things that I want to sort of tweak back in the workshop before we hit the track again at Sydney and we’ll probably come out of that with another list of things to do,” he explained.
Slade resolute ahead of 2023 season
Heading into his 13th season of Supercars, and after an admittedly tough campaign in 2022, Slade is enthused about working with the team at PremiAir Racing.
‘I’m excited, they’re a good bunch of people,” he added.
“I actually know, a lot of them, I’ve worked with some of them previously, and a lot are familiar faces that have been in the pit lane for a long time, so it feels like a very comfortable transition.
“Jimmy [Golding] is a good bloke, we get along well, so yeah, we just got to work hard and make sure that we obviously do the best job we possibly can and execute really.
“It’s been a long off-season and it is just nice to do some specific training, but nothing beats doing the real thing.”
PremiAir Racing will now prepare for the all-in test day at Sydney Motorsport Park on Wednesday, February 22.
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