Nissan Motorsport has seen three of its drivers claim top 10 finishes after a fascinating and entertaining 250km race at the Newcastle street circuit today.
Plus Fitness driver Andre Heimgartner qualified in last place after missing the set-up, but put in a splendid drive to come home in eighth place, equalling his best-ever Supercars Championship result.
Castrol Racing’s Rick Kelly finished in ninth, and more importantly, moved ahead of Fabian Coulthard in the championship standings. He now sits eighth overall with one race to go.
Simona De Silvestro reset her best-ever championship result, coming home 10th. While the Harvey Norman-backed driver was disappointed with a strategy situation, she did enough to take her first ever top 10 finish.
Michael Caruso had a suspension failure in qualifying, leaving him down in 20th place. In the race, the Industrial Athlete-backed driver was caught out on the wrong strategy but fought valiantly to finish 15th.
The team return to the Newcastle track tomorrow for the final day of the 2018 Supercars Championship. Qualifying will be held at 10:50am AEDT, followed by the top 10 shoot out (12:50pm) and another gruelling 250km race, starting at 3:40pm, to conclude the title fight.
#7 PLUS FITNESS RACING – ANDRE HEIMGARTNER : « It was an interesting day for us. I just stayed out of trouble and made places up when others were spearing off, » said Andre Heimgartner. « From dead last, this is a good result and definitely not what I expected. The car wasn’t quite right in qualifying. We’ll see if we can tune it up, but I was happy with the car pace in the race. »
#15 CASTROL RACING – RICK KELLY : « It was a pretty eventful race. We are grateful that we were able to stay out of trouble, finish with a straight car and move up one place in the championship, » said Rick Kelly. « We had a decent swing at the set-up today to try and improve and learn a fair bit. When you do that, you bring other problems into it. We learnt a lot, finished ninth and we’ll get on with it tomorrow. »
#78 TEAM HARVEY NORMAN – SIMONA DE SILVESTRO : « We hosed ourselves by not pitting under the Safety Car. I really thought we were cooked at that point, » said Simona De Silvestro. « We had good pace on the old tyres, so I was able to make up a few positions. The car was OK, we need a little bit of work tomorrow. And there were a few mistakes from my part too. I locked up a few times into the hairpin and lost some time. We’ll go on tomorrow, we know we have good pace. I think the result could have been better, but we live and learn. »
#23 INDUSTRIAL ATHLETE – MICHAEL CARUSO : « The Safety Car came out at the wrong time, which was unfortunate because we’d only pitted a handful of laps before, » said Michael Caruso. « Because of that, we couldn’t fit all of the fuel in to meet the fuel drop, so it was frustrating. « We’ll have a look at it all tonight and tomorrow morning, regroup and get stuck into it for the last race. »
Press release Nissan Motorsport
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