Scott Pye fought back late to grab 16th in today’s 200km race at Queensland Raceway, but a front left tyre failure ruined James Courtney’s afternoon.

Another slight improvement in qualifying saw JC out of 14th for the 65-lap race, with Scott in 17th.

They both kept their noses clean early, before JC was one of the first cars to stop on lap 11, while Scott swung by pit lane on lap 18.

The undercut worked beautifully, with car 22 just outside the top 10, and Scotty inside the 15 at the second round of stops on lap 34 and 35 respectively.

With 11 to go, sitting in position 12 and catching the cars in front, the front left tyre on JC’s car failed, forcing him to stop again and go a lap down, ruining his afternoon.

As there were two other cars who had tyre issues leaving debris on the track a safety car was called.

The guys decided to box Scott to swap tyres, but unfortunately on his way into pit lane, he was held up by a slow car with damage.

After going green with eight laps remaining, Scott climbed back to 16th, one stop up from where he started, with JC crossing in 23rd.

It wasn’t the afternoon we were after, but the tyre failure was out of our control, and Scott was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We take the positives from the weekend, with some gains being made in both qualifying and the race.

Now we look forward to our first test day since the beginning of the year, before we head to Sydney Motorsport Park.

Thanks as always for your support.

Scott Pye

“it was tough out there today, we were really hurt by that slow in lap under the safety car.

“In the end, we moved forward, but we just lacked a little bit more pace to continue the climb.

“I’m really looking forward to the test day coming up to get some valuable time behind the wheel working on the development of the car.

“You definitely take the positives from this weekend, but we’ve still got more work to do.

James Courtney

“That tyre failure was deflating…

“Things were looking okay for us today. The guys made a great call on strategy, and I was being conservative with the tyres in the final stint, setting myself up for a crack at the end.

“Like Scott, I’m looking forward to the test day. I think the qualifying car was better today, so we are heading in the right direction.”