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Brad Jones Racing and Erebus Motorsport have downplayed the significance of losing out on test running this week due to wet weather at Winton.
The two teams briefly cut laps on Monday morning, but both opted to cease activities before the 10am cut-off to ensure the day was not recorded as a test.
BJR had hoped to return to the venue today but did not take to the track due to the ongoing bad weather.
While the bulk of Victorian teams had used the second of their three test days for the season prior to the recent Winton race meeting, neither BJR nor Erebus are now expected to test again until at least August.
BJR driver Jason Bright says the change of plan will simply require more work to be done during Friday practice at coming events.
“We had a lot of stuff to get through but it’s nothing that we can’t do at race meetings,” Bright told Speedcafe.com.
“I think the Winton race meeting proved the direct impact of testing. We were the only team that didn’t test beforehand and Sladey (team-mate Tim Slade) had an awesome weekend.
“There’s lots of little stuff that you want to learn at tests that help you make better decisions at race meetings, but I don’t think it’s the be-all-and-end-all.
“We’ll just have to work through what we’ve got at the next few events.”
Bright is confident that a fresh engine in his car for Darwin will bring a boost in performance after failing to match his runaway team-mate last time out.
The veteran took 14th and 15th place finishes while Slade swept to a double victory.
“In Sunday qualifying I was equal fastest in the middle sector where there’s no full throttle and last in the final sector, so we’ve got a fair idea of where we’re struggling,” he said.
“I’m relatively confident we’ll get those couple of tenths back for Darwin and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the chassis.
‘But I also feel that there’s even more to come because we’re definitely not the strongest engines out there at the moment.”
Despite Monday’s brief running having taken place in damp conditions, Erebus general manager Barry Ryan insists that his squad benefited from the track time.
“It’s always a shame to delay valuable testing time but we can’t control Mother Nature and we needed her on our side to run through the planned program,” he said.
“With a short turnaround for Darwin after the test it makes sense for us to head back to the workshop and reschedule the test after the next three rounds.
“The short run we had yesterday confirmed the direction we are heading with is working and we still managed to take positives out of the day and learn so it wasn’t a loss at all.”
Prodrive is at Winton today running a shakedown with Mark Winterbottom’s new chassis, while Triple Eight, Tekno Autosports and DJR Team Penske are testing at Queensland Raceway.
