[V8SC] Lee Holdsworth column

by Lee Holdsworth



SANDOWN RACEWAY

It was another tough weekend for GRM at the last round of the V8 Supercar Series at Sandown. I was banking on a good solid result after suffering from our engine failure at the previous round in Townsville, however, nothing seemed to play into our hands at our home track!

I guess the best thing about the weekend was that we were able to sleep in our own beds at night… such a relief after spending the previous couple of rounds a long way from home.

Sandown with its long straights, particularly the back elevated straight, is renowned to be a big horsepower circuit, and if everything is not working in sync you will have problems putting together good fast consistent times. I battled with engine dramas throughout Friday and Saturday which really hurt my qualifying and race pace.

For Saturday’s race I started a disappointing 21st. We decided it would be best to save our sticky tyres for Sunday’s race and had to accept it was going to be a difficult race to move forward on the harder compound, especially given we were down in engine speed.

I ended up 18th, although of the drivers who chose to run the hard tyres we were 3rd in line so felt confident that we would be up for a decent result on Sunday.

After the race, the engine gurus went to work, scouring over all the data taken from my car but could not put pinpoint any one area.

After quite a lot of deliberation between me, the engineers, engine experts and Shirl (team manager) it was decided that the engine needed to be replaced for Sunday.

This proved to be the right call as Sunday’s qualifying showed. I ended up 7th, less than two tenths of a second off pole.

I started the race on the sticky tyres and ran well up in the front pack. The crew put me onto the harder tyre early and was saving what was left of the softer compound for my second stop and a sprint to the end.

A safety car period influenced our decision to swap back to the softer tyres 25 laps from the end, but that was about 10 laps earlier than we were hoping.

I was racing strongly in third position gaining valuable ground on Kelly and Tander and looking to be set for a podium, but in the dying stages my tyres wore out completely. I was a struggle but I was able to hang on to finish in 11th place.

I still sit sixth position in the driver’s championship standings.

We’ll get them next time! We are testing at Winton next week to further improve the GRM cars so we should have a good shot at bringing home some trophies back from up north.

Our next race is at Queensland Raceway on August 21-23.

Lee Holdsworth
Valvoline Cummins #33





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