With an overnight low of 2 degrees, it was a chilly start to Day one of the third round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Winton Raceway.
The day consisted of 3 practise sessions. In the first session Tony felt comfortable in the car and was able to post competitive lap times. At a routine pit stop the team found the exhuast, left air jack and rear diff assembly had been damaged heavily. "I'm not too sure what caused the damage, I dropped a wheel off the circuit coming out of Turn 2".
The team worked hard to repair the damage so the car could continue in the session. Tony ended the session in 9th position.
Soon after the second session had started, Dean Fiore went cross country and brought out the red flag. As the session got underway again, Russel Ingall had some problems which brought out the red flag again. Tony didnt get much running in this session, however it gave the team more time to fix the damage that had occured in the first session.
For the third session the teams aim was to gain experience on the new 'Soft' compound. Straight out of the box Tony took 2.5 seconds off his fastest laptime recorded. "The new tyre felt great, its just a matter of getting used to it and knowing how much you can get out of it". As it was the first time the team had used the tyre, Tony completed another 4 runs to see how the tyre would cope. "It was interesting to see how the tyre would hold up, the tyre lost grip after about 4 laps, we will have to be smart how we use the tyre in the race'.
The Bottle-o commodore finished in 19th for the day. The team will have a long night ahead of them to repair the damage from session one. The team found out later that Tony had run over a piece of lead that had fallen off another car.
Qualifying and Race One begins tomorrow at 11am.
Last Modified on 06/08/2009 14:45