Erebus Motorsport’s David Reynolds has scored another top ten at Queensland Raceway with seventh today, while teammate Anton De Pasquale made an impressive recovery to 17th.
In a repeat to yesterday, Dave got bogged down at the start, losing four spots off the line to slot in behind Caruso for ninth. Anton however, was on a mission to redeem himself, jumping off the start and picking up two spots before the end of the opening lap.
Dave pit from third on the road at the end of lap 19, taking on a big amount of fuel and fresh set of rubber. Anton followed just two laps later and re-joined the pack effective 19th.
The race order was corrected on lap 24 and with Whincup on a similar strategy to Dave, the Penrite Holden was set for a solid battle against the champ. With fresher rubber, Dave carved up the field and passed Caruso and Stanaway to sit just outside the top ten.
With different strategies to play out it wasn’t until Dave pitted at the end of lap 45 that order the was made clear. Re-joining the pack behind a battle between Kelly and Tander, fresher tyres saw him slice through the field. The #9 marched forward, getting by Tander, Kelly, Le Brocq and eventually Lowndes.
Behind him, Anton accelerated through the back of the pack and made it as high as 15thbefore eventually dropping back to 17thbefore the finish line, still six spots ahead of where he started. Dave continued to carve it up and closed his gap on Slade to just 0.2-seconds, although ran out of time at the end of lap 65 and finished 7th.
DAVID REYNOLDS; Started 5th, Finished 7th
“We opted for a different setup in this morning’s qualifying. We had three sets of green tyres all up and we used two on the option I thought was better, but turns out it was slower. Sometimes when it feels nicer to drive it’s a bit slower; so I had one shot with the set up from yesterday and I did a similar lap time as then.
“I had one of the worst starts I’ve had in a long time and got back to ninth, got stuck behind a few cars and couldn’t pass as easy as I would have liked. We opted to stay out a lot longer and took a lot of fuel in the first stop so we could come home with a wet sail and managed 7th.”
ANTON DE PASQUALE: Started 23rd, Finished 17th
“Our race speed was good today, we were able to make a few moves and gain some spots early on which helped us after a poor qualifying.
“In previous round our race pace hasn’t been our strength but we seemed to have reversed it this weekend, where we now have the pace to race forward, but unfortunately had to fight a lot more from the back of the pack.
“If we can go back and regroup and get both happening in the one day then we’ll certainly have a very good time at the next one.”