Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen has expressed his lament after qualifying only 19th for the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.
While there was time enough to begin another lap before the chequered flag came out, he did not complete it.
As such, either of van Gisbergen or co-driver Richie Stanaway will start from the inside of Row 10 tomorrow at Sandown International Motor raceway in the first enduro of the 2023 Supercars season.
“It wasn’t the best day for us, unfortunately,” admitted van Gisbergen.
“I feel sorry for everyone in my team for qualifying so poorly, but hopefully we can make some improvements for tomorrow’s race.
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“Richie has been amazing, and his lap times have been super impressive – he’s really fast so it’s a shame we’re not starting further up the grid.
“Our emphasis tomorrow is to have a clean race, and the rest will sort itself out.”
Stanaway was at least able to enjoy some unexpected seat time in the morning’s Practice 4, the last session before qualifying.
He remarked, “I wasn’t planning on driving at all today, but I ended up getting a few laps in the fourth practice.
“For me, it was really useful to get some running in the car instead of just sitting in the garage all day.
“We had a pretty good couple of runs, but we’re still just trying to find the balance between focusing on the qualifying today and the race set-up tomorrow.
“We still haven’t settled on what we’re going to do with the race set-up tomorrow, but we’ll have a good think about it tonight and hopefully what we roll out with tomorrow is fast over a long run.”
In the other Red Bull Ampol Camaro, which Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup are driving, the former earned fifth on the grid in the Top 10 Shootout.
The Supercheap Auto wildcard of Craig Lowndes and Zane Goddard is set to start from 23rd on the grid.
Warm Up starts tomorrow morning at 10:10 and the Race itself at 14:15 local time/AEST.
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