BJR looks at positives from a difficult first race in Perth
All four Brad Jones Racing cars made up positions in the opening race of the Perth SuperSprint following a challenging qualifying session.
The R&J Batteries Camaro at the hands of Andre Heimgartner led the BJR squad home in 13th in the 55 lap race.
Heimgartner was also the highest qualifying driver in the four-car stable, finding himself in 15th on the grid.
The #8 driver ran long during his first stint but even on fresh rubber wasn’t able to make moves on those ahead.
Bryce Fullwood in the #14 Middy’s Electrical machinery came the furthest of the BJR drivers, starting in 20th and finishing 15th.
WIth only a handful of tenths covering the entire field in qualifying, it was a slim margin that meant Jaxon Evans started from 21st.
It was a challenge from there for him and team-mate Macauley Jones (Pizza Hut Racing) in the race who started from 24th.
The pair saw the chequered flag in 18th and 19th, respectively.
The team will look into qualifying pace overnight and see where they can make gains ahead of tomorrow’s events.
There’s another chance with practice tomorrow at 9:40 AWST ahead of qualifying at 12:00 AWST.
Super 2
A positive Saturday for Cody Gillis and Elliott Cleary in the Super2 Series, with both young drivers happy with their progress.
Cody finished Q1 on provisional pole and ultimately ended up fourth after the rest of the field completed their attempts in the second session.
From there the #9 Vibe Petroleum ZB Commodore had a steady race and held out P4, in his best Super2 result.
Cleary ‘s Q1 lap had him in fourth before Q2 took to the track where he dropped to P15 in the #19 Sync Music ZB Commodore.
The teenager had some contact during the first lap of the race causing an issue with his left front tyre making it difficult to maintain a steady pace but finished the race in 13th.
The Super2 series is back on track tomorrow for Qualifying at 11:05 AWST.
Supercars Quoteboard
Andre Heimgartner
Supercars driver, #8 R&J Batteries Camaro
"The day was alright just didn't qualify particularly well. Not terrible, but that sort of set our day up. The car is really fast in the race had some good lap times. And yeah, it was moving in the right direction, but qualifying is key especially here. So tomorrow we'll try and tune that up. I think we know a rough direction we want to go in. So we'll try that and see if we can improve it because that's sort of what the key is around here
Bryce Fullwood
Supercars driver, #14 Middy's Electrical Camaro
"Qualifying today we made it through to the second part. And then unfortunately, we didn't quite get it together. So we started 20th. And we probably had potential to be 15 or so but unfortunately not to be. That's on us for that one, but pretty positive race, we came up to 15th. The crew did a really good job. Obviously, this weekend is a little bit more challenging than normal for us without Phil [Keed, usual race engineer] here. But we're having a lot of fun and we'll take that win and I think we can make some some small changes for tomorrow."
Macauley Jones
Supercars driver, #96 Pizza Hut Camaro
"Qualifying was pretty average, didn't really get the most out of the lap but it's very tight. I've got a bit of work on there. The three part qualifying was interesting. It's kind of nice to mix it up. The race car is okay, it's pretty hard to pass around this joint but I had some good characteristics. Had a good start, that was nice. Just need to tweak it a little bit more to clean it up a bit, and should be a bit faster tomorrow."
Jaxon Evans
Supercars driver, #12 SCT Logistics Camaro
"Qualifying was obviously disappointing. I think it just shows how competitive and tight the field is. I know it's a short track but three tenths covering the whole field is pretty crazy. And if you're on the wrong side of that tenth, you miss out with this knockout qualifying situation. So we just missed, we were the first to miss on the transfer to Q2, which was frustrating. But feel like we've made a big step forward from yesterday's practice, car speed wise and also myself and driving. I couldn't really go much further back off the start, but I did. Got a shocking start. It made life a little bit more difficult for myself, hung in there in the end. Finished 18th which is positive to move forward. Not really as far forward as what we want to be moving. We'll aim to qualify better tomorrow and race further forward from a better qualifying position."
Super2 Quoteboard
Elliott Cleary
Super2 driver, #19 ZB Commodore
"We had a solid day. In Qualifying we just didn't really piece it all together, I think we left a bit on the table there but it still was an improvement on the previous round. So that's good. And then in the race we had contact at the start where I think we picked up some minor damage but were still able to pick up a few spots. So we'll give the cars a tune up tonight and have another crack tomorrow."
Cody Gillis
Super2 driver, #9 ZB Commodore
"Pretty good day. Big step forward for for the whole team. Did some changes for qualifying, went over data last night and pretty much just sent it this morning. I went pretty well, which was good. And then obviously the race sort of just managed as best we could. Obviously I've never really done a race that long before. Pretty good day overall. Just got to do it again tomorrow. So hopefully qualifying goes well and go again in the race."