Reynolds desperate to rebound at his “weakest” circuit

Eastern Creek hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for the 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner. In his 14 seasons to date, he’s never stood on the podium and his best finish remains a pair of fourths in 2015 and 2020.

Townsville was particularly tough for Reynolds. He was only 15th and 22nd across the two 250km races.

That led to a colour description from the Albury-born driver after a bad qualifying, stating: “Some days you’re the shit, sometimes you’re the sandwich, either way it’s a shit sandwich.”

“Sydney is a very difficult track to set your car up for,” said Reynolds ahead of the Sydney SuperNight.

“The surface is tricky, and the corners are long. It’s a track that I’ve never done super well at.

“I’ve had reasonable speed there in the past but never managed much, so it’s probably one of the weakest tracks for me in my career.

“The night race is something special. It’s a lot of fun and makes things a little bit more challenging, but I’m looking forward to it.

“After the weekend we had in Townsville, we need to turn our form around and hopefully make some strides forward in Sydney.”

While Reynolds languished, his teammate Mark Winterbottom claimed 13th initially in the first Townsville hitout before rising to eighth in the closer.

Based in Melbourne nowadays, Sydney is something of a homecoming for Winterbottom.

Like Reynolds, the 2015 Supercars champion is keen to make up for the team’s Townsville performance.

“It’s another soft tyre round, and there are multiple strategies that work, whether it’s one stop or two stops,” said Winterbottom.

“We’ll have to run through those numbers, but I think you’ll see alternate strategies and some good racing.

“We had a tough weekend at Townsville, but I think we improved as the weekend went on.

“Now we need to go to Sydney, carry that momentum, and keep making the car better. I’d love to win on home soil in Sydney, so bring it on.”

Supercars resumes at the Sydney SuperNight with a 90-minute practice on Friday from 5pm AEST.

Supercars will have qualifying at 2:50pm AEST on Saturday followed by a top 10 shootout at 4:55pm then the solitary night race beginning at 7:35pm AEST.

Sunday’s format is mirrored with qualifying at 12:05pm AEST, the top 10 shootout at 1:40pm, and the race at 4:05pm. Both races are scheduled to run for 51 laps.