SAVVY STRATEGY SURGES PENRITE RACING FORWARD ON SATURDAY AT PUKEKOHE

SAVVY STRATEGY SURGES PENRITE RACING FORWARD ON SATURDAY AT PUKEKOHE

Saturday, September 10 – ITM Auckland SuperSprint

A couple of savvy strategy calls surged David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth forward as Supercars went racing in New Zealand once again, today.

At a packed out Pukekohe Park Raceway, the first of three 41 lap sprint races roared to life for Reynolds, starting P14, and Holdsworth, starting P23, out to surge their way forward after a less than ideal qualifying performance earlier in the day.

Like a blessing from above for Reynolds, the Supercars seas parted at turn 1 on the opening lap when Nick Percat, James Golding, Tim Slade and James Courtney came to blows, allowing him to gain two positions and go on the attack to find himself inside the top 10 after lap 1.

Pulling into the pits early to get clean air on the short 2.91km layout, Reynolds drove a clean and consistent race to get himself another top 10 finish in P9.

Meanwhile, a fired up Holdsworth forged his way forward, with the retiring Supercars veteran showing his race smarts and speed, while the team ran him long as the last car to make a pit stop from the lead with only 12 laps remaining.

After leaving the pits, a timely safety car gave Holdsworth, now on fresher rubber, the chance to make amends and capitalise to finish P12 – up 11 places from where he started.

Penrite Racing is back on track tomorrow for two more sprint races at 10.55am and 2.10pm AEST – Sunday, September 11.

DRIVER COMMENTS

David Reynolds, said: “I was the beneficiary of the crash at the start for sure, but I’ll take that any day. We started 14th and finished 9th which is pretty good overall.”

“My car has got too much understeer, it was quite scary actually, it was probably one of the first times I’ve thought ‘this is kinda not fun’ (laughs). I has way too much understeer through all the fast stuff and then you get behind a car and you feel like the car won’t ever turn.

“At least we know what to improve in the car. I’m looking forward to going hard tomorrow.”

Lee Holdsworth, said: “I wasn’t happy with my qualifying, which put us on the back foot, but the race was much better today.”

“Credit to the team today, they did a fantastic pit stop, made a smart strategy call and then I had good car speed so we gained 11 positions from where I started.

“Tomorrow with a good performance in qualifying we have the race speed to run top 10 and press on from there.”

RESULTS

Race 27

Reynolds: P9

Holdsworth: P12

Qualifying

Reynolds: P14

Holdsworth: P23

Practice 2

Reynolds: P10

Holdsworth: P14

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

Reynolds: P7

Holdsworth: P14

Teams Championship: P5