Practice 4 pace-setter Jonathon Webb hopes to turn around a tough season to date with a strong result at this weekend’s Trading Post Perth Challenge.
Webb’s Tekno Autosports team has moved from running a single Ford to a pair of Holdens this year, and has done so with minimal commercial sponsorship.
Although beginning the year with a fourth placed qualifying effort on Saturday in Adelaide, Webb’s fortunes took a turn for the worse the following day when a qualifying crash saw the #19 Commodore miss Race 2 and the following Australian Grand Prix meeting.
Currently 24th in the points standings after six races, Webb says that this weekend is about turning promising speed into tangible results.
“It’s been a pretty tough season so far really,” said Webb after a wet day of practice at Barbagallo.
“It was a big jump to go to the two new cars and grow our team from a little backyard team to one with 20 staff and two race cars.
“It was busy enough for us to rush into Adelaide, and then everyone saw what happened after that.
“A car that took eight weeks to build had to be rebuilt in two weeks, so the boys all got in and gave me a car that’s been good ever since.
“We’ve had good speed but it’s been pretty disappointing to date to not be able to put the results on the board.
“Hopefully what we’ve done today will be a sign for the rest of the weekend.”
Webb completed all four practice sessions at Barbagallo today due to his lowly championship position, improving from 14th and fifth in the two bottom 50 percent sessions to run fourth and first in Practice 3 and Practice 4 respectively.
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 1 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 2 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 3 report and results
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s Practice 4 report and results
“It’s been an up and down day – it’s been really, really tough,” said Webb.
“It’s great having those extra two sessions but most of the time you’ve got no tyres to do it with. We wobbled around on old wets pretty much for three quarters of the day before putting good ones on at the end.
“We didn’t really know where we were for the majority of the day, we were just playing around trying to make it as comfortable as we could to drive and the rest of it came at the end.”
Webb’s only career V8 Supercars Championship race victory came in wet conditions during the 2010 Sydney Telstra 500.
See below for Speedcafe.com’s Trading Post Perth Challenge Race Guide
