PENRITE RACING SURVIVES THE STREETS ON SATURDAY

Saturday, December 3 – VALO Adelaide 500

Penrite Racing has survived a chaotic opening race in Adelaide as the heat and the newly resurfaced track caused plenty of headaches for David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth, today.

In an eventful outing that saw the biggest names in the field all strike trouble at some stage, the 78-lap encounter pushed the experienced duo to the edge as they worked in unison to stay out of trouble and score a healthy bag of points.

Reynolds, who earlier in the day had the third fastest lap time in the top 10 shootout, was forced to start P10 after a technical issue with his car, just one place ahead of Holdsworth in P11.

As the race got underway they hovered around the edge of the top 10 before Reynolds dived into the pits to get his first compulsory pit stop out of the way.

However, on lap 16 he became the first of many to run off the track at turn 11, losing a lot of time as he navigated his way back onto the circuit.

Holdsworth meanwhile had his head down and found a groove to climb up to P6.

As the race progressed fans didn’t know where to look with the likes of 2022 champion in waiting Shane van Gisbergen, Cam Waters and James Golding all finding the fence.

Holdsworth lead the race periodically before a succession of safety cars set the theme for the closing chapter of the race. The team took the option to fuel up both cars and make it home safely, albeit from the back of the pack.

Shades of Leethal Lee return when the veteran went on a late race charge from P18 to finish P10, while Reynolds hung on as best he could to bring the car home P11.

DRIVER COMMENTS

Car #10 Driver Lee Holdsworth, said: “That was one of the toughest races physically I’ve been a part of. There was a lot of chaos, and the track grip was very inconsistent and dirty.”

“I was pushing hard to make up for a slow pit stop where our wheel gun failed. I had an off at turn 4 when the brake pedal went long, which made our job harder again. With these two issues, it took us out of the running to finish top 5. In the end we salvaged a top 10.

“I’ve got one more race tomorrow and I’d love nothing more than to go out with a good result.”

Car #26 Driver David Reynolds, said: “I know it’s always hard work at this track in this weather, but that was the most difficult in terms of heat that I’ve ever felt in my career.”

“Towards the end of that race I was purely in survival mode just trying to get myself home.

“I’m not that happy with how I drove today, I made an error at turn 11 early, which cost us a lot of time. The new surface is so tricky to handle, if you’re not on the racing line just a little bit you’ll be off the road.

“The upside is we don’t have any major damage, but I’ll be very sore tonight, so recovery is so crucial now.

“If my shootout lap didn’t get deleted then we could have started on the second row of the grid today and that would have made things a little easier. I’ll be gunning for another shootout berth again tomorrow.”

RESULTS

Race

Holdsworth: P10

Reynolds: P11

Top 10 Shootout

Reynolds: P10

Practice 3

Reynolds: P8

Holdsworth: P13