Red Bull Holden Racing Team
16 OCT 2020
Both bulls qualify in the Top 10 for tomorrow's Bathurst 1000 shootout
Jamie Whincup / Craig Lowndes - Car #888
Practice 4 (Co-drivers only) - 14th (2:05.8922)
Practice 5 - Fifth (2:04.6280)
Qualifying, Race 31 - Fifth (2:04.2660)
Shane van Gisbergen / Garth Tander - Car #97
Practice 4 (Co-drivers only - Second (2:05.2319)
Practice 5 - Sixth (2:04.6792)
Qualifying, Race 31 - Second (2:04.0351)
Jamie Whincup - Car #888
"It never ceases to amaze me how gnarly this place is in qualifying. The big thing I took out of that was just how nuts it is. These tyres feel quite grippy and I've never gone over Skyline as fast as I have then. Then having to do it four times – you don't just go out there, do your lap and think, 'let's go have dinner and go home'. You've just got to do it and go again and find another tenth. It's crazy, the cars are so similar. There's so much in the driver and style. My style is good in some corners, but SVG is smashing me in other corners, so we just need to learn off each other to keep going faster."
Craig Lowndes - Car #888
"It was good to have a co-driver session this morning. We had a clean run, went through a number of changes and a got a direction that we wanted to put the car in, which was even better, so we kept working on our program. The car felt really nice at the end from my side of it. Jamie's done a fantastic job in qualifying to be in the top 10, so at this early stage of the weekend it's looking really positive. The track will evolve, we've just got to make sure that we chase the car for the track and we did that today, so we're really happy with where we're at, at the moment."
Shane van Gisbergen - Car #97
"The qualifying session was awesome. Looking at the times everyone was so close which is pretty cool, and well done to Lee (Holdsworth), it's great to see him up there qualifying on top. For us, we're just getting better and better, and our car overall is getting better and better too. We've had some really cool laps around here, and it would've been interesting to see what happened in that last run if it wasn't for the rain at the top of the mountain. Every run in qualifying we were sort of near the front, in that third or fourth position, and then popped up into second in that last run which was pretty cool. I'm looking forward to the shootout tomorrow."
Garth Tander - Car #97
"We had another good day today. The car responded nicely to changes in my session, and I felt really comfortable in the car and our pace was pretty strong for the tyre condition we were using, so I'm happy with where we're at. Shane did his 'Shane-thing' and got us in the shootout which turned out nicely, so a good day overall. Tomorrow I'll be concentrating on getting some more laps in before Sunday's race. Obviously we have the shootout which Shane will be concentrating on, but for me it's all about getting the race stuff done and understanding what we need to have for a race car over the course of a long stint. I'm really happy with today and I'm looking forward to tomorrow."
