SANDOWN 500 GETS UNDERWAY
The Sandown 500 got underway today, with three practice sessions for teams to get their cars set-up for the big weekend ahead.
SANDOWN 500 – FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14 - PRACTICE
Fabian Coulthard & Tony D’Alberto - No. 12 Shell V-Power Racing Ford
Practice 1 – 9th (Fastest Lap: 1m08.6396s – D’Alberto)
Practice 2 – 8th (Fastest Lap: 1m08.3816s – Coulthard)
Practice 3 – 10th (Fastest Lap: 1m08.9782s – D’Alberto)
Scott McLaughlin & Alex Prémat - No. 17 Shell V-Power Racing Ford
Practice 1 – 7th (Fastest Lap: 1m08.5853s - Premat)
Practice 2 – 11th (Fastest Lap: 1m08.4604s - McLaughlin)
Practice 3 – 23rd (Fastest Lap: 1m09.4361s - Premat)
RECAP: The opening session for the Sandown 500 was for Co-Drivers only, which saw Tony D’Alberto in Car No.12 and Alex Premat in Car No.17. They both worked on race pace, running the longest stints of any cars out on track in the session with Premat driving 21 laps and D’Alberto 22 laps. Practice 2 saw Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin have their first runs of the weekend. Held in windy conditions, the circuit also provided some unusual grip characteristics thanks to an epoxy sealant that had been applied to the surface prior to the beginning of the event. Chassis set-up continued in the challenging conditions, ahead of Practice 3. The final session was another Co-Driver only session. Work continued on the car set-up with Car No. 12 doing single-lap runs, and Car No. 17 focusing on race runs. The next on-track session is Practice 4 tomorrow morning at 10:10am local time.
COULTHARD QUOTE: “It was a productive day. Tony did a great job running the first session and the last session. The Holdens are fast, so it’s looking like it will be a tough weekend. We’ll maximise our package, and do the best we can with it.”
D’ALBERTO QUOTE: “I’m feeling pretty comfortable. We’re just making changes trying to find that last little bit out of the car. We’re not far away. We do need to find a little bit, but we’ve come here with a pretty different set-up to last year, so we’re just trying to fine tune that and see how we end up.”
MCLAUGHLIN QUOTE: “Not too bad a day here. We ran through our program, but I don’t think we’re where we need to be. We’ve got some improvements to make for tomorrow, but there is going to be a mixed bag of weather, so we worked on a lot of race runs there at the end with Alex and hopefully we’ll be good in the dry weather.”
PRÉMAT QUOTE: “It’s nice to be back behind the wheel of Car No.17 at Sandown. We’ve been working, and we know where to go for tomorrow. We have some direction. My sessions were good. And Scott did some good work in Practice 2. We’ve focused on getting the car right in dry conditions for Sunday, as it appears tomorrow will be wet. A little bit of work to do, but very happy to be back here with the team.”
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