With only a week turn around after the Townsville 400, the Virgin Australia Supercars are set to hit the track again this weekend at the Coates Hire Ipswich Supersprint at Queensland Raceway.
Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport are fully focused ahead of this weekends Ipswich Supersprint, putting behind them the tough weekend that was at the Townsville 400.
Arriving at the Townsville event, LDM’s Holden VF Commodores were both without naming rights sponsors. However, this was short lived as Plus Fitness threw their support behind the Team post Saturday mornings qualifying session.
With health issues sidelining LDM’s team manager Barry Hay, Race Engineers Campbell Little and Chris Stuckey along with Crew Chief Adrian Ratskin stepped up to fill the void.
“It’s been great to have the likes of Campbell (Little), Chris (Stuckey) and Adrian take on the extra work load ensuring minimal disruption for the Team,” said Dumbrell.
Pilot of the #222 Holden VF Commodore, Nick Percat, admits it was a tough weekend for the Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport team in Townsville and is focused on bringing home results this weekend.
“For us as a team, I think we need a bit of redemption after Townsville – it was a very average weekend having both cars DNF on Sunday and also for myself on Saturday not finishing due to mechanical issues,” says Percat.
“I know the crew have been working extremely hard to rectify those issues so that we can hopefully look at getting two cars finishing both races at the right end of the grid.”
For the 27 year – old, this event is a little more special as his personal sponsor Coates Hire are naming rights of the event.
“Coates Hire are one of my personal sponsors, so I’m really looking forward to getting up there for the Coates Hire Ipswich Supersprint at Queensland Raceway,” says Percat.
“I have been with Coates (Hire) now since 2011, so I’m looking forward to getting involved and doing some activation activities around the track over the weekend with them.”
Last year at Queensland Raceway, the Lucas Dumbrell team finished with a top ten result, giving hope for the team to redeem themselves.
“Last year at QR (Queensland Raceway), it was a bit of a happy hunting day for us, Saturday we finished inside the top 10 and qualified 9th,” said Percat.
“For me, we will run through a different phase of set ups and try and get a handle on that.
“The crew have worked extremely hard to get the cars ready for Ipswich with the tight turn around, so I’d really like to reward them with a positive finish and hopefully be able to boost some confidence back into the team.”
Teammate, Andre Heimgartner looked to have a promising weekend at Townsville, after finishing 14th on Saturday, however mechanical issues cut short his Sunday’s race.
“Townsville was certainly a tough weekend for us, Saturday I finished up 14th and although I was looking good for Sunday, unfortunately mechanical issues ended our race,” said Heimgartner.
The 21 – year old Kiwi is set on moving forward and continuing to improve and get the most out of the #3 Holden VF Commodore.
“For us it is important that we get our qualifying result sorted and instead of coming from 23rd to 14th we can aim to start from 17th to hopefully finishing higher.
“Our aim is to focus on minimising the reliability issues and hope we can have a positive weekend.”
Engineer, Campbell Little has proved to be an asset to the team since the Darwin event, as the 21 – year old Kiwi continues to learn from Campbell’s wealth of knowledge and experience within the field.
“The relationship between Campbell and I is going really well and has certainly lifted the team up since Darwin,” admits Heimgartner.
“We’re just really looking to get that little bit more out of the cars and to place higher in qualifying, but he’s (Campbell) definitely a massive advantage to us.
The Coates Hire Ipswich Supersprint kicks off at Queensland Raceway on July 22 – 24 with the first practice session on Friday 22nd July at 2:30pm.
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