James Courtney has finished 12th, and Scott Pye 17th in race 2 of the 2019 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship in Adelaide, rounding out a disappointing weekend for the team.
After a race that turned to chaos in the middle, neither car was able to make the inroads required to move forward in the 250km race.
The car balance late in this morning’s qualifying just wasn’t quite there. It was an improvement on yesterday, but as the rest of the field also improved the time to beat overnight, leaving Scott to start in 13th, and JC 15th for the second race of the weekend.
Despite high humidity levels, the weather was much more friendly than yesterday, with temperatures in the low 30’s as opposed to 40.
When the race got underway, JC stopped on lap 1, while Scott pressed on opting to go longer like the majority of the field.
Both drivers were fighting to get the cars turned in for most of the race.
A mid-race safety car, caused by chaos in pit lane, saw JC stop, but Scott continue on, as his tyres were only handful of laps old.
That safety car wasn’t enough for the field to get home with, which meant another round of stops with 35 laps to go, where Scott re-joined in 17th, and JC 13th.
Not much changed in the final stages of the race, with the boys just not having the car beneath them to challenge those ahead.
In terms of car speed, there were definite improvements from 2018 to 2019, but it wasn’t at the rate of some other in the field.
It’s a tough weekend to swallow after months of hard work and anticipation.
We will return to the workshop this week, and as a team, understand where it went wrong.
Thanks for your support, we will be giving it everything to bounce back at the Australian Grand Prix in just under two weeks’ time.
Bruce Stewart - Co-Team Principal
“It’s not the start to the season anyone in the team wanted or envisaged.
“It’s been a difficult weekend for everyone here with the heat, but everyone worked extremely hard to put the learnings we found over the break into action, so it hurts.
“The results are not acceptable for us, it’s not the level we want to be at.
“As a team, we will go back and regroup. We’ve got an opportunity to turn it around in under two weeks’ time at the Grand Prix.”