Despite Andre Heimgartner’s lowest placed finish of 15th at Hidden Valley on the weekend, there were many positives to take away from the second run-event. The 25-year old raced consistently and didn’t fall out of the top fifteen for the weekend and finished as high as eighth on Sunday.
Saturday saw the NED Whisky #7 Mustang just scrape through into the top fifteen shoot-out, whilst managing to pick up a couple more positions to put himself in 13th ahead of the first race. Unfortunately, Heimgartner couldn’t maintain his position and slipped into 15th across the finish line.
“Saturday wasn’t our best day. I was optimistic that we were going to see some better results, but we are still trying to work out the window with the Mustang,” admitted Heimgartner.
“The field was super close, so it was tight racing for sure. Our pitstops during the race though were mega, the guys did a lot of practice on Friday so that was great to see the improvement.”
The Kelly Racing team made a few changes to the #7 Mustang overnight and managed to come out firing for qualifying on Sunday, placing ninth and tenth respectively. The first race of the day Heimgartner got off to a great start and held onto 9th until heading into the pits, however lost a position whilst managing tyres and crossed the chequered flag in 10th.
Sunday’s final race of the weekend saw the team opt for a different strategy to the previous races, doing a longer stint and stopping later in the race for tyres. Starting from P10, the strategy paid dividends due to fresher tyres and by the end of the race the Kiwi managed to claim his best finish of the weekend in eighth.
“Sunday was a much better day, we managed to find something overnight which was really good and the car was actually fairly speedy, especially in the last race,” said Heimgartner.
“We’re still a bit away from where we want to be, but it’s great that we made gains and improvements so I’m happy with that, it’s a step in the right direction.
“Now we look forward to Townsville and spending this week going over the data and seeing where can make further improvements.”
The Virgin Australia Supercars now head to North Queensland for the NTI Townsville SuperSprint, 29-30th August for the third consecutive race weekend.
Results
Saturday 22nd August
Practice 1 – 9th
Practice 2 – 10th
Qualifying (Race 16) – 13th
Race 16 – 15th
Sunday 23rd August
Qualifying (Race 17) – 9th
Qualifying (Race 18) – 10th
Race 17 – 10th
Race 18 – 8th
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