Saturday Wrap: NED Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint

Some solid racing from both David Reynolds and Matt Payne today at Symmons Plains raceway which played host to Round 4 of the championship with Practice 1 starting the first of the on-track sessions this weekend.

Practice 1 had both #19 and #26 missing out on the top ten, however Dave and Matt had consistent pace out of the box.

A change of an oil pump belt in Practice 2 meant Matt spent some time in the pit and wasn’t able to complete as many laps as preferred.

Qualifying unfortunately did not go our way with a gear shift sensor issue for Reynolds meaning he was eliminated in Q1 finishing a disappointing P23 while Payne was eliminated in Q2 finishing in P16.

Focus shifted to Race 10, the first Race of the weekend which saw a clean start for both Penrite Racing Mustangs. Both cars lacked race pace however there was spirited racing mid pack with Reynolds and Payne making moves on Smith and the Cool Drive entry to make up a couple of positions late in the race.

Matthew Payne said:  

“It was pretty eventful I must say; we rolled out struggling for a little bit of pace. I definitely like driving around this track, it’s pretty cool [we] just struggled with pace throughout Practice and Qualifying and that lead to us starting towards the back. We had some fun racing some guys at the start and Dave and myself found ourselves racing against each other and some event found time to work together late in the race which was cool. Hopefully we roll out tomorrow in Qualifying with more pace giving us a bit more of an opportunity to race up the front, so we will definitely be working hard overnight and see if we can come out strong tomorrow.” 

David Reynolds said: 

“I had a bit of a drama in Qualifying; the gear shift failed so we were buried down in 23rd – so pretty much second last. Not the best Qualifying run, so we didn’t get a real read on the car.” 

“We made a bit of a swing going into the race, and it didn’t really pay off. I don’t think my car was that fast, but it was a lot of fun racing. Me and Jack Smith were having a good old battle out there and then Matt came out behind us with probably about 10 lap better tyres. I let Matt pass so he could have a go at Jack and try and stuff Jack’s momentum up, then we both towed each other down the back straight and I was pushing Matt like “Go go, get past him go!” and we both got past him on the very last lap, so it was perfect teamwork. You can’t script that sort of stuff… in the race so the ‘in the moment’ stuff was awesome. 

“Looking to tomorrow, our cars aren’t super-fast around here; we need to have a really good think about how we are going to make our performance better and go out there and try as hard as we can.” 

Supercars will get back on track Sunday for Race 11 qualifying at 9:50am local time immediately followed by Race 12 qualifying.

Two more 42-lap races will commence, at 1:05pm and 3:50pm respectively.

CONTACT:

Alison Powell | PR, Media, Marketing Coordinator | Grove Racing alisonp@grovegroup.com.au +61 0452 518 061