Holdsworth top ten a silver lining for Penrite Racing in hard luck day for Reynolds

NED Whiskey Tasmania SuperSprint

Saturday, March 26

A craft recovery drive from Lee Holdsworth has given a ray of sunshine to Penrite Racing on a frustrating opening day of racing at Symmons Plains, Tasmania today.

Starting P21 after suffering steering rack issues in qualifying, Holdsworth manoeuvred his way through the angry Supercars battle pack to climb 12 spots, where he finished the first of three sprint races in P9.

However, the true pain in the garage was being felt by the car #26 crew of David Reynolds, who showed some good speed and smart strategy to find themselves in P8, largely thanks to an early pit stop strategy that gave Reynolds the undercut on the field after starting P15.  Reynolds put in the fastest lap of the race to find himself knocking on the door of the top 5 before chaos ensued.

Exiting the hairpin with 7 laps to run, Mark Winterbottom tagged Reynolds, spinning both drivers off the circuit and claiming championship leader Chaz Mostert in the process.

Reynolds was able to drive back to the pits to bring car #26 home in P21, with not much to take home with his fastest lap of the race.

Earlier in the day Reynolds showed promising signs to be P1 after Qualifying stage 1, but missed the cut for the final stage of the F1-style qualifying system, after locking a front brake on a lap that would have seen him start inside the top 10 with an extra set of fresh tyres up his sleeve.

Championship Race 3

44 Laps

Lee Holdsworth: P9

David Reynolds: P21 (Fastest lap of the race)

Car #10 Penrite Racing driver, Lee Holdsworth: “Obviously the day didn’t start out ideally with Qualifying so far back but I’m really happy we got home P9. With sprint races on this tight and twisty circuit I felt like there was always going to be a bit of early chaos in the race, so I tried to keep it clean early then the team made a good call to get me in for my stop which helped get me up the order.

“I was sitting P13 with 10 laps to go then unfortunately for Reynolds he got caught up with Frosty and Chaz, but that played in my favour. We need to get qualifying right tomorrow, I feel we’ve made good gains which hopefully mean I don’t have to race through the field again tomorrow.

Car #26 Penrite Racing driver, David Reynolds: “We went for the aggressive strategy in the race, and it was paying off then I got stuck in traffic that lead to some issues with heating the front tyres. I was in a good battle for the Top 10 before I got turned around by Frosty. I felt pretty surprised by the contact, that’s not usually his style and but that’s motor racing.”

“We’ve got good car speed which shows with the fastest lap of the race today. We just need to nail qualifying tomorrow, which isn’t easy on such a small track like this, but we have some positives to build off and if we can get ourselves in a good spot to start the two races then I’m confident we can turn the weekend around.”

 

Qualifying

David Reynolds: P15

Lee Holdsworth: P21

 

Practice 2

David Reynolds: P5

Lee Holdsworth: P18

 

Practice 1

David Reynolds: P13

Holdsworth: P14