It might be his adopted home turf, but the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit was not the kindest to Melbourne-based Kiwi Andre Heimgartner this weekend.
Despite what was an all-round challenging weekend for the 22-year-old, Heimgartner says he has plenty of positives to take away from the weekend while those watching on noted his performance under pressure, citing a number of exciting overtaking moves made under challenging conditions.
“For the first race our #7 Plus Fitness Racing Nissan started from 14th and things were looking promising,” Heimgartner began.
“Unfortunately, we made a mistake by running too much pressure in the tyres which saw a pretty tough opening stint for us in that race. We soldiered on and brought it home in 18th though and had some good car speed in the second-half, which was looking promising for Saturday’s two races.
“Then, the rains came, and they came hard – race four of the championship started under safety car and while I did all I could to work my way up to the mid-pack, unfortunately some issues in the pit stop saw us lose a few places late in the proceedings, finishing 16th. It was good fun sliding around out there though.
“The second race of the day was a bit of a different kettle of fish – we had not too bad car speed but with some issues in the pitstops and some other things going on we weren’t able to make the most of that.
“Once again, we went to work overnight, combining knowledge from Rick’s set-up and Michael’s car and hoping to put together a package that would see us in good shape for Sunday’s final race of the weekend. We were able to round that one out with a season-best of 14th.
“The Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit is sure a unique track, I quite like it as it is fast and flowing, but it can sure be frustrating if your car isn’t quite right!
“Even so, there are plenty of positives to take away – this is only my second round with Nissan Motorsport and I am already feeling really comfortable with the team as I continue to work on coming to grips with the Altima – plenty of passing this weekend sure goes a long way towards that – it felt like I did more passing this weekend than I have up to this point all together!
“Working with Dilan (engineer) again is really great too and I think there are a lot of things we can take away from this weekend which will help us set ourselves up bigger and better ahead of Tasmania in a few weeks’ time.”
Heimgartner and Nissan Motorsport will next be on-track with the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship for the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint across April 6-8.
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