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Red Bull Ampol Racing is continuing to chase “niggling” issues within Shane van Gisbergen’s Chevrolet Camaro while Erebus Motorsport’s Brodie Kostecki also has a handling anomaly.
Van Gisbergen was third-quickest in Practice 1 at the NTI Townsville 500 but did not go hard during the final runs due to what he reported back as a steering problem in Car #97.
His Race Engineer, Andrew Edwards, said post-session, “We’ve got a few little niggling things in the car that we’re feeling lately. We’re just working through that.
“But otherwise, his pace was pretty good considering, so he’s straight back into it.
“I don’t see a problem there so it’s just trying to get on top of these little tiny things we have so that it’s perfect.”
Team Principal Jamie Whincup remarked, “It is a similar thing, for sure.
“It’s just the steering’s not straight under brakes; it’s not consistent all the way around the lap.
“We’re not sure if there’s a mechanical issue with the car. There was a lot of pick-up at Darwin, there’s also a lot of pick-up here this weekend.
“There’s marbles on the side of the road, the car drives over it, they stick on the tyre, and then when the tyre’s not quite the same size left to right, it messes with the steering angle.
“So, we’ll go through everything, like we did in Darwin, try to make it a little bit happier inside the car, and if we find a fix, happy days.”
Fellow Chevrolet outfit Erebus also had a handling drama in one of its entries, with drivers’ championship leader Kostecki hopping out of Car #99 with minutes to go in a session topped by team-mate Will Brown.
“We just had a bit of an odd deal going on with the steering,” explained Kostecki, who would end up 11th-quickest.
“There’s just some pretty fast sections with kerbs here, so I didn’t want to take any risk and write the car off if anything were to happen.
“So, I just want to make sure it’s all good, but we’ll be back out there for P2.
“The good thing was, I only did a few laps on the car but the car felt pretty solid.
“Obviously Will ending up P1 there is a positive. He got a lot of track time to tune the car up a little but the car’s rolled out pretty good.”
Elaborating on his experience, Kostecki remarked, “Just a few odd things that’s happening inside the car, just over when you hit some kerbs and breaking and whatnot.
“It just didn’t really give me too much confidence and there’s walls either side, so if you make a mistake, it’s really punishing.
“The boys will get it fixed up and we’ll be back out there for P2.”
Practice 2 starts this afternoon at 14:45 local time/AEST.
