While Dick Johnson Racing ran its two new Mustangs under the media spotlight at Queensland Raceway, the squad’s former driver quietly chalked up laps in his new ride at Winton.
Team 18 built up a fresh car for its recruit after purchasing a new chassis from Triple Eight in December that had initially been earmarked for new champion Will Brown.
It’s the second Camaro to be driven by De Pasquale, who sampled a spare Team 18 machine during category testing at the Bathurst 12 Hour late last month.
“It’s ran faultlessly, it rolled out of the truck feeling really good straight away. The whole team did an amazing job with the build,” said De Pasquale of his new machine.
“It was a productive day, we went through a few things and worked through my first day with the team at the racetrack. It’s pretty exciting, everything ran really good.”
Three new Camaros will make their race debuts at Sydney Motorsport Park next week.
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Cam Hill gave his Matt Stone Racing entry its first laps at Ipswich alongside the DJR Fords, while Brad Jones Racing’s Andre Heimgartner ticked off a shakedown at Winton on Wednesday.
Hill also gave a positive report on his new car ahead of his third season in the Supercars Championship with the Queensland-based squad.
“I think the worst part of our day was just one of our wheel speed sensors; other than that it was a full ground-up build and the car ran faultlessly,” he said.
“That’s a massive credit to the boys in the shop.”
The shakedown provided Hill and MSR a chance to bed in a revised engineering line-up, as well as a new machine.
“I feel like the whole quality of the organisation is on the rise,” Hill said.
“I’ve got Caleb Mutsaerts working with me now as well as Paul Forgie, he’s still very much involved, and that whole dynamic was working really good.
“It’s nice to start developing that language.”
While the control nature of the Gen3 machines means each new car is simply a fresher version of the last, Heimgartner says fine-tuning is always required within the cabin.
“It’s always nice getting a new car, getting used to the different ergonomics, trying to make it feel like the car was last year and the year before,” he said.
“It’s always something for a driver, every car has little differences, even amongst the teams.
“It was cool to get a little taste of it. Can’t wait to go to the test day next week and the first round and see how we go.”
The new MSR and BJR cars utilise Pace Innovations-built chassis, although BJR has flagged plans to join Pace, Triple Eight, Walkinshaw Andretti United and Erebus as an accredited builder.
A total of six new cars will be on the grid in Sydney, with Chaz Mostert haven shaken down his new WAU Mustang late last year.
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