Just 24 hours after triumphing over Broc Feeney to score a sensational victory in Saturday’s second sprint, Heimgartner again had the Red Bull Ford in his mirrors.
“I saw Broc in my rear vision mirror and thought, ‘I beat that guy yesterday and now he’s about to lap me’,” Heimgartner said.
The Kiwi finished 14th on Sunday and the last car on the lead lap.
He’d quipped after qualifying 17th that “I should have got drunk last night and not turned up today with how that went.”
It was a fall from grace that typified the fine line between hero and zero amongst the highly competitive field, particularly on the short Symmons Plains layout.
“A bit of a frustrating day, obviously not the results we wanted after [Saturday], but overall a positive weekend,” he concluded.
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“Hopefully we can take some good lessons away but it’s nice to have some good speed and win the race yesterday.
“Just need to try and be a little bit more consistent…”
Heimgartner expected Sunday to be tougher given it was run on the soft tyre, rather than the super soft that delivered his pole and win on Saturday.
He’d been competitive, though, on the soft on Saturday, qualifying fourth and finishing fifth in the opening race.
Team owner Brad Jones suggested track conditions also played a factor in the poor Sunday performance across his three-car team.
“Qualifying didn’t work out anywhere near where we expected it to. The boys struggled a little bit with the balance of the car,” he said.
“I think it was a combination of things.
“We ran on the soft tyre, there was a bit of rain overnight which washed a fair bit of rubber off the circuit, I would have thought.
“So qualifying didn’t end up where we wanted and in the race the boys did their very best, but it was hard work out there.”
Jones nominated son Macauley’s drive from 23rd on the grid to finish 15th – the first car a lap down – as the highlight of the Sunday results.
Cameron Hill brought the squad’s third car home in 19th.
Heimgartner is 12th in the championship after five rounds, with Hill 16th and Jones 19th.
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