PremiAir Racing elected to hold Ojeda’s first rookie test day after two rounds, rather than prior to the season start.
Utilising a spare chassis, the team was given dispensation to hold the test while the regular race cars are being shipped to New Zealand.
Ojeda completed 150 laps of Queensland Raceway in short runs.
The team spent the morning making suspension adjustments and trying different combinations in a focus more on qualifying speed than general race pace.
“My first rookie day of the year, there’s a few things that I just need to hone in on, some things that you don’t get the pleasure and luxury of doing on a race weekend,” Ojeda told Speedcafe.
“Obviously, we [rookies] have a slightly bigger tyre bank than others.
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“The big, important part of this championship is qualifying, so just trying to put a key focus onto that.
“Ultimately the engineers always come up with ideas of things they want to try throughout the year.
“It’s a big risk to try those items on race weekends when the practice sessions are so short and sometimes so few.”
In the first seven races of the season, Ojeda has qualified a best of 13th position twice and has shown glimpses of race speed with a best finish of seventh in the Albert Park finale.
The rookie’s season has had its share of good and bad luck.
Ojeda was able to just miss the spinning Broc Feeney at the start of the Sunday race at the Grand Prix, but has been on the receiving end of misfortune at times.
The team was able to utilise the test to iron out procedural errors shown throughout the opening two rounds, such as a wheel coming off in the pit lane at Sydney Motorsport Park, resulting in a 22nd place finish.
His Albert Park weekend was then blighted by a crash in practice that left him a spectator for both Thursday qualifying sessions.
“We haven’t started the year too bad, for sure there’s been some decisions that we should have done differently, and some mistakes that we prefer not to make, but ultimately it’s all been a learning experience,” said Ojeda.
“So, for sure doing this day today has been a massive luxury.
“Ultimately just laps in a Supercar is super beneficial and good for development.”
Ojeda heads to New Zealand coming off a win in the opening round of GT World Challenge Australia, but says that doesn’t change his confidence level, still eager to prove his ability in Supercars.
“I’ve always got a lot of belief in myself. We all do as drivers,” said Ojeda.
“So if I win, lose, regardless of the result, I’m always sort of going to have a fair bit of confidence in what I do, but it’s always nice to get a win and to be as quick as we were that weekend.
“There’s not much in terms of technique that carries across, but for sure the seat time is enjoyed, and I just enjoy driving.”
Having not raced at either New Zealand circuit on the Supercars calendar, Ojeda and teammate Declan Fraser have both done laps at each circuit to prepare.
The Supercars NZ double header commences with the Taupo Super 440 on April 10-12, followed by the Christchurch Super440 one week later.
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