Despite being the fastest Dunlop Series runner on the Mt Panorama circuit, a poorly timed Safety Car cost Jack Le Brocq any chance of winning the Dunlop Series race at Bathurst on the weekend.
Recovering from a difficult qualifying, Jack moved swiftly from starting sixth to fourth before an early race Safety Car compressed the field and enabled his teammate to get pitstop priority.
Forced onto a contrary strategy, Jack set a blistering pace at the restart to edge away to a big lead before his pitstop, dropping back to 11th.
Unfortunately, despite being the pace of the field, Jack wasn’t able to recover sufficient ground to finish among the leaders.
“Today didn’t play our way at all. Because of the timing of the Safety Car we were forced to adopt a different strategy which might have panned out well if we’d had another Safety Car. Unfortunately we didn’t and that cost us.”
THURSDAY
• Jack 3rd in Dunlop Series Practice 1
• Changes to be made overnight to reduce oversteering car
• Fastest Ford
“It was great to get out in the GoGetta Falcon again. It’s a new car (to me) since the accident at Sandown but it felt exactly the same (as the previous car). We had too much oversteer in the session and it wasn’t anything we could change in the session, but we’ll tune it up overnight. There’s plenty left.”
FRIDAY
• Jack 3rd fastest in Practice 2
• Jack qualifies 6th for Dunlop Series race
“It was an up and down day. We had some speed on the old tyres which is promising for the race but we didn’t quite nail the setup in Practice 2 for the new tyre. We made some changes for qualifying but unfortunately went the wrong way.
“The good news is that we have put a fresh engine in overnight and it’s a long race tomorrow.”
SATURDAY
• Jack fastest in morning Warm Up
• Jack finishes 7th
“We had plenty of speed today but no luck. The car was great but unfortunately I got pushed off the road a couple of times, and got held up badly coming back through the field, and that really cost me.
“Disappointing but we move onto Homebush.”
