Asian Motor Sports

Jim Beam Racing’s Will Davison has won the dubious honour of being the first victim of Hamilton’s concrete walls after an incident out of turn seven saw him break a steering arm and slam into the barrier.

The #18 Jim Beam Falcon clipped turn seven, the result a broken steering arm and a long night for the team.

With no steering Davison careered heavily into the wall ripping the right front hand tyre clean off the car and at one stage sitting on two wheels.

A spokesperson for Jim Beam Racing said that while the team had a long night ahead of them the car would be right for tomorrow’s qualifying session.

“There is a fair bit of damage to the front end of the car and down the right hand side and it has swung around and in the rear as well,” he said.

“But compared to what the impact was, the damage isn’t as bad as it could have been.

“There is a little but of suspension damage and a bit of front end damage, but a part from that it could have been a whole lot worse. We’ve got some work to do but we will be back on track for qualifying.”

The incident in the third and final practice session saw the first red flag of the day come out with almost 20 minutes, of the hour-long session, lost.

However, the top 10 times for the day were evenly split between the Ford and Holden camps with just half a second splitting them.

Fastest for the day was current championship points leader Jamie Whincup clocking a 1:24.58, followed by Garth Tander, who clocked a 1:24.62 on his second last lap of the session.

“We have all done our homework before we got here and made predictions and we were pretty close,” Whincup said after the session.

“But I must admit that it is a bit bumpier than what I thought and the corners are little bit tighter than I predicted. But all in all it is a street circuit; it has got all that variation that all three (street) circuits have, the crown roads, the white lines, the tight corners and walls on either the side.”

I think the bumps and the tight chicanes here just makes it all the more exciting.

Tander was happy overall with the cars performance toward the end of the sessions, particularly after struggling early.

“It wasn’t a bad day, we were always planning on inching up on the circuit because like anything especially on a new track there no point being fast on the first lap it’s better to be fast at the end and it takes us older blokes a bit longer to learn the track than these young guys,” Tander said.

“The car was good at the end, it was a little evil at the start, but we chipped away and in the end the car was not too bad. Tonight we will go away and look at everything and see if we can make the car a bit nicer.

“But we don’t know where the track will be tomorrow as far as grip level goes, because it looks like if it gets wet here over night and then as the track dries out we don’t know what grip levels are going to turn up tomorrow.”

The surprise package for the Friday sessions was the 18-year-old New Zealand rising star Shane Van Gisbergen who, from the outset, showed good pace and a good head to guide the SP Tools SBR Falcon into the third quickest time of the day. Van Gisbergen completed the most laps out of all the drivers with a combined total of 48 over the three sessions with his fastest lap of 1:24.82 coming also on his second last lap of the day.

“Today was a great practice for us and the car wasn’t too bad to start with, we adapted to the track pretty quickly, we had a few issues with high speed stuff at the corner after the chicane and through the chicane, but it was great fun and really enjoyed it,” Van Gisbergen said at his first press conference in V8 Supercars.

“The car was pretty good out of the truck, we had a good base line set up and it was then all up to me to gel with the track and the car and we did that and with a few minor adjustments we got there in the end and are very happy with the result.

“But it is only practice of course and we have a long weekend ahead of us, we will go away and have a look at some data overnight and tomorrow is another day and we will see how we go then.”

Neither Whincup or Tander thought that their times would be quick enough for the top two positions, but believe everyone has more to show in qualifying tomorrow.

Tander believes the simulation time for the track by V8 Supercars of 1:23’s is likely and should come tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Qualifying begins at 11.20am local New Zealand time (1.20pm EST)

Technorati Tags: Asian Motor Sports, Australia, New Zealand V8 Supercars, Australia, New Zealand, Garth Tander, Jamie Whincup, Will Davidson, Jim Beam Racing