‘I really think we can do better’ – van Gisbergen

Disappointment for the Red Bull Ampol Racing team with Shane van Gisbergen/Garth Tander qualifying for the Repco Bathurst 1000 in seventh (2:04.2278) and Jamie whincup/Craig Lowndes failing to get inside the top ten, qualifying in 11th (2:04.5158).

“We were looking pretty good in the qualifying session, but then we got a bit out of sync,” commented van Gisbergen. “We timed our run too early, and unfortunately, we had a bad run. The last run I did wasn’t too much of an improvement as well, which is a shame.

“We’ll need to look at why that was the case, because I really think we can do better, but as you can see all of the Triple Eight-spec cars are nowhere. We need to have a think about our results and see what we can do tomorrow to be faster.

“I think Garth (Tander) will do the bulk of tomorrow’s practice sessions, and I’ll focus on shootout preparation. I probably plan for Garth to do race runs and make the race car better for Sunday.”

Co-driver Garth Tander backed up van Gisbergen’s comments, “The car felt reasonable during this morning’s practice sessions. We rolled out better than yesterday and I felt really comfortable.

“I was expecting yesterday to be a bit of a shakedown and then feel a lot more comfortable today and that was good for me. Throughout practice, our program went really well so I’m comfortable where everything is at, and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.

“I think there’s a lot more out of the car heading into tomorrow’s shootout. We didn’t quite get it right for today’s qualifying session and everyone else stepped up, but I don’t think it’s a big drama and gives us something to focus on tomorrow.”

Will Brown pipped Anton De Pasquale and Chaz Mostert to provisional pole with a time of 2:03.898. Supercars will return to the track on Saturday for Practice 5 at 12:15 NZ time with the highlight of the day, the Top Ten Shootout, timed to go from 6:45pm NZ time.

Repco Bathurst 1000 qualifying results: