Penrite Racing and NED Whisky Racing have today returned to The Mountain for the Repco Mount Panorama 500 at Bathurst. In an extremely exciting start to the 2021 Supercars Championship season, the sprint race format returns to Bathurst for the first time in the Supercars era. Kelly Grove Racing drivers André Heimgartner and Dave Reynolds cut their first laps of the round in today’s two critical practice sessions ahead of tomorrow morning’s Race One qualifying.
The first Practice session went extremely well as both drivers made consistently completive laps throughout the course of the one hour session. The team used the session to great effect, making multiple major suspension setup changes to extract the most performance possible from the team’s two Ford Mustang Supercars.
In the closing stages of the session André was able to put together a very quick lap to finish in P5 with his NED Whisky Racing car. Dave was also very competitive in the Penrite Racing Mustang, finishing the session P10.
Later in the afternoon the team had Practice Two with somewhat different track conditions to Practice One. The crew worked hard throughout the entire session to unlock some pace and managed to do so in the closing stages of the day, however neither driver was able to set an optimal lap time due to tyre quality and other factors.
Quotes
André Heimgartner, Driver, #7 NED Whisky Racing
“It feels good to be back at Bathurst, any time you can do laps around here in a Supercar it’s great fun. Tomorrow morning we’re straight into qualifying so today’s practice sessions were extremely important.”
“It’s been an interesting day, we’ve spent the whole day obviously tuning and refining the car in today’s practice sessions. We weren’t the best position wise but we made a change towards the end of the second practice and went quicker on used tyres so that’s a positive, we seemed to find something there. The weather this afternoon was quite a bit different from the first session which had quite a big impact on the car.”
“We’ve just got to wait and see what tomorrow brings, the weather is going to play a big factor, we could see some rain which will throw a spanner in the works for everyone so we’ll see how we go.”
David Reynolds, Driver, #26 Penrite Racing
“It’s been a great first day for me with the new team, everyone’s very enthusiastic, very positive so for me I couldn’t have found a better home for myself. Car speed isn’t there yet, but we’ve had glimpses of hope during the day which makes you feel a little more positive - if I get it together and grow some confidence and make the car slightly better we’ll be close.”
“I made an error in my best lap there towards the end on the green tyres so there was definitely more pace in the lap had I got it all right, but that’s motor racing. The car is so different from what I’m used to, it’s just going to take time and this is the worst track to come to to try learn a new car.”
“The Mustang is the best aero balanced car I’ve driven here, it’s very stable across the top of the mountain, I’ve just got to get used to how it behaves and get the most out of it.”
