Saturday at Pukekohe, New Zealand was a tough day at the office for Mobil 1 HSV Racing.

In a day dictated by rain, Scott Pye crossed the line after the 200km race in 14th, while James Courtney, who lost three laps stuck in the tyre wall, finished in 25th.

The heavens opened before the 20-minute qualifying session, which threw the day into chaos.

The new surface in the back half of the circuit turned into ice, unable to clear the standing water.

After five minutes of the session, and multiple hairy moments, the session was red flagged due to dangerous track conditions.

To give some context, the cars were aquaplaning in a straight line with 10 per cent throttle.

That meant starting positions were dictated by the combination of yesterdays practice sessions, which didn’t fall in our favour.

It put JC in 14th, and Scott 17th for the start of the race.

On a half drying track, the decision was made after the warm up lap to start both cars on slicks.

Because of how late in the piece the track dried, we were unable to make any adjustments to the car before it went green.

Scott had a relatively uneventful race, keeping his nose clean, but unable to make too much of a charge forward due to the balance of the car.

Unfortunately for JC, his afternoon hit a speed hump on lap 33 when he locked a brake at turn 2.

The slippery conditions caught him out, as he nosed in to the tyre barrier on entry, needing to be dragged out.

He circulated for the rest of the afternoon, but at three laps down, there wasn’t much he could do.

Tomorrow is a new day. We took a gamble on weather conditions being a lot more wet, which didn’t happen.

We have another qualifying session tomorrow, before a 200km race in the afternoon.

Thanks once again for your support.

MATHEW NILSSON – GENERAL MANAGER OF MOTORSPORT

“We went with a setup today to try and give the boys as much grip as possible in the wet today and we just got it wrong.

“The weather was really bad this morning, forcing qualifying to be cancelled for the first time in a long time, and we thought it was going to hang around for the race.

“The two guys did a good job with cars that weren’t to their liking.

“Unfortunately for JC he locked a tyre in to turn 2, but for Scotty he trucked along and moved forward slowly, again, with a car that we weren’t happy with.

“We will go through what we did wrong and the decisions we made, and give the guys a better car for tomorrow.”