 Older Article | Newer Article |
[V8SC] Lee Holdsworth column
by Lee Holdsworth
50th V8 Supercar round start in Tassie
Having now been full-time with the team for four seasons, it was very satisfying to clock up my 50th V8 Supercar round start in Tasmania at the weekend. Whilst it only seems like yesterday that I made my first V8 Supercar starts with Garry Rogers Motorsport, I’ve certainly come a long way since my rookie appearances in the 2005 endurance races.
My aim for the weekend at Symmons Plains was to gather a good bundle of points to add to my championship tally…especially after enduring such a horrid weekend at the previous round.
Things looked promising on Friday, as we ended a rather cold and windy practice session second fastest. The weather was that cold I was expecting snow for the races!
My engineer made some changes to try and improve the car further for qualifying, but unfortunately we went backwards instead. I ended up 13th and a spectator for the shootout, despite being just two tenths of a second slower than the fastest time of Jamie Whincup. I guess that’s the nature of the Symmons Plains circuit, you make a small tweak to your car setup and you may gain one or two tenths of a second which can be the difference between 1st and 15th. The entire field of 30 cars was separated by just one second, it was that tight.
The first race for the weekend was a 100km sprint with a compulsory pit stop for fuel. It sounds simple but when you throw the ‘option’ tyre and the possibility of safety cars into the equation, it makes finding the right strategy a difficult task. We decided to start on the ‘prime’ tyre and rely on safety cars to bank the field back up before we switched to our softs during our pit stop.
It was good in theory, but with the safety car failing to make an appearance for the entire race, we were really battling. Most other teams decided to start with the soft tyres and run the whole race without changing them. Without safety cars this gave them a huge advantage over me. I exited pit lane well down the order in 17th position, and had just 14 laps remaining to move forward. I managed to fight my way up to 10th by the chequered flag.
I again started 13th for Sunday’s race after experiencing dramas in qualifying with a lack of front grip. Race 2 was a 200km race with a compulsory fuel and tyre stop, and we decided to start the race with our prime tyres, while most cars again started on the softs that they had used in the previous race.
This meant that I rapidly dropped back through the field in the opening segment of the race. At one stage I was running down in 26th position, but we knew we still had our soft tyres to use for the end of the race, so anything was possible. In our second compulsory stop the boys bolted on the soft tyres, and with 35 laps remaining, I had to make inroads towards the front fast if I was to get some good points for the weekend. I was able to fight my way through a bundle of cars to find myself sitting in 7th behind Russell Ingall and Jason Bright with just five laps remaining. Satisfyingly, I managed to squeeze my way past them both to finish 5th.
All in all it wasn’t quite the weekend that I was hoping for, but in the end I finished up 6th in the (unofficial) ‘weekend points’, and am equal 4th with Garth Tander in the championship.
In three weeks we are racing in Darwin and let me tell you, it will be nice to throw the beanie and jacket to the back of the cupboard and bring out the shorts and pluggers!
I hope to see you there.
Lee.
| Older Article | Newer Article |
| Browse 'LEE HOLDSWORTH' | |
