After a tough first half of their on-track day, PremiAir Racing has enjoyed a “transformative” turnaround for the afternoon’s racing at the Perth Super 440 to end their Saturday on a high.
When it came to the on-track action, the proceedings started with back-to-back qualifying for races 14 and 15 of the Supercars Championship, with a two-part knockout format in play for both sessions.
In qualifying for race 14, Jimmy Golding took the #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro into part two on P10, where he remained in the second session. Richie Stanaway, meanwhile, struggled with the #62 PremiAir Racing entry, finishing up in P24.
In qualifying for race 15, neither Golding or Stanaway were able to progress to the second part, logging the 18th and 24th quickest times respectively.
In race 14, both drivers put their heads down across the 50 lap race and did what they could to bring the cars home in P13 (Golding) and P24 (Stanaway). The disappointment at not having advanced further was then compounded by a post-race penalty in what was the team’s 100th race, a 30 point team points penalty for the tyre being placed too far out in the lane during the pit stop.
While the day had been mostly frustrating for the team to this point, it was in Race 15 that the PremiAir Racing Camaros and those behind the entries had their chance to shine.
With wholesale changes made to both cars between the two races, the Camaros were transformed for the final 50 lap race of the day, allowing Stanaway to climb seven positions from P24 to P17 – including an incredible passing move on the grass which drew plenty of applause from the commentary team – and Golding four positions from P18 to P14.
“(On the overtaking move on the grass) I got unlucky a few times with cars coming out earlier on cold tyres but luckily I had just enough margin to clear them, but obviously when Bryce came out it was pretty marginal, he was wobbling across the track on the cold tyre so I just had to make the split second decision to go through,” commented Stanaway.
“If I had checked up behind him, I would have lost a lot of time, when you are racing everyone, you are fighting over every tenth of a second, so you don’t want to throw away a few seconds, so yeah it was a bit sketchy, but it had to be done.
“(On the second race) We made a massive change between the two races today; we were missing a lot of speed in quali and in the first race and completely transformed the car for that second race. So, we will roll that out tomorrow and hopefully we can qualify a lot further up.”
With this newfound direction putting a smile on the faces of drivers and crew alike, PremiAIr Racing is feeling more confident heading into Sunday’s final day of the Perth Super 440, which will feature a two-part qualifying session (11.00am) followed by a Top Ten Shootout (1.05pm) to set the grid for the afternoon’s 80-lap Race 16 (2.05pm). For full event information, visit www.supercars.com
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