Team 18 entered Townsville on a promising trajectory, Reynolds scoring a podium in Tasmania before Anton De Pasquale recorded a second win for the season in Darwin last time out.
However the trip to North Queensland was a reality check for the factory GM squad, with De Pasquale’s second place in Saturday’s race a rare highlight.
That was De Pasquale’s only appearance in the top 10, while a 10th in Saturday’s race was Reynolds’ best result, book-ended by a 16th on Friday and a 12th on Sunday.
Reflecting on the weekend, Reynolds admitted it was frustrating to feel the momentum slip away from the team after Darwin.
The veteran says the set-up ideas on the table coming into the weekend didn’t work, and while Saturday’s race pace was promising across the two cars, efforts to improve it for Sunday had the opposite effect.
“We just came in with the wrong ideas, I think,” Reynolds told Speedcafe.
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“After Darwin we were pretty confident in our set-up and our package, and then we came [to Townsville] and we had a ‘junker’.
“In practice we couldn’t brake, we struggled with brakes and to try and really pull the car up. There was a lot of locking, a lot of inconsistencies.
“That got better as the weekend progressed. But we had a lot of understeer in the car, a lot of front lock and I just couldn’t get rid of it. It just kept happening session after session.
“[On Sunday] in the race it was really bad for me. [Saturday] it wasn’t as bad and that’s why I was able to manage my car a bit better and go forward.
“But [Sunday] I really, really struggled out there. It was a tough day.
“After Darwin we thought we were understanding our package and all the guys worked tirelessly on that perfect set-up, the simulation and everything coming here – and then you drive the car and it’s miles off.
“So you throw everything out and just reset.
“We qualified much better [on Sunday] but it wasn’t good in the race. We took our race car from [Saturday], which we were happy with, and we tried to tweak it, make it better and improve it, but it just went the other way.
“I don’t know, it’s just really frustrating and confusing.”
While De Pasquale remains well-placed for Finals, sitting sixth in the standings, another quiet weekend for Reynolds leaves him sitting 15th and unlikely to qualify on points.
His primary hope to make the post-season is winning the Enduro Cup, where he’ll team up with James Courtney for The Bend and the Bathurst 1000.
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