It was a Saturday filled with mixed emotions at Sydney Motorsport Park, but the biggest thing to come out of it was a top 5 finish for Scott Pye.

After starting out of ninth for the race, his best qualifying result of the year, Scott was able to move forward through the 31 lap, 120km race.

After a clean start, and a lighting pitstop by the boys, he popped out in P10 with 16 laps remaining.

The safety car was called a few laps later, which bunched the field up and caused a bit of chaos on the restart.

A great lunge down the inside of Reynolds with 7 to go put him in sixth, which turned out to be fifth, as McLaughlin was handed a 15-second penalty.

On the other side of the garage, the safety car wasn’t as kind.

JC was the first car in the field to stop on lap 9, which allowed him to undercut a few in front.

The timing of the safety car meant that those behind on fresher rubber had bridged the gap, which was going to make it difficult on the run home.

When the race went green again, JC suffered front end damage as cars fired left right and centre, forcing him to nurse the car home in 17th.

On the team front, it was another step forward in the development process.

We are not getting ahead of ourselves, there is still work to be done, but it shows the direction we took in the test day last week was the right one. It’s progress.

We will reset and go again tomorrow, this time for 200km around Eastern Creek.

Stay tuned.

Scott Pye

“Getting into the top 5 is a great reward for the team, and for all the hard work they have put in this year.

“Qualifying in the top 10 was a good result this morning, and the race showed we are heading in the right direction, and what we learned at the test day last week has helped.

“It was enjoyable to be mixing it up the front, but we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves, we’ve still got work to do.

“The aim tomorrow is to be back in the top 10 for qualifying, and then see what the longer race holds.

“Thanks to everyone for their support!”

James Courtney

“Unfortunately for us, that safety car came at the worst possible time.

“We had a left rear issue in the stop that slowed us down a bit as well, so we had to play catch up after the stop.

“On the restart, I just had nowhere to go, and copped a whack in the front, and had to nurse it home.

“We will go again tomorrow.”