Penrite Racing’s David Reynolds took a battling eighth place at today’s season opener in Adelaide,

Anton De Pasquale, meanwhile finished 16th after recovering from yesterday’s difficulties that compromised his race.

At the start, sixth-placed sitter Dave made it through Turns 1 and 2, brushing off a brief challenge from Will Davison before settling for seventh.

From the rear of field, Anton was keen to find a way forward and some clear air, strategically peeling off into pit lane as soon as lap one.

On opposing strategies, David waited until lap 12 to make his stop.

The visit to pit lane dropped him further into the midfield, but on fresh rubber he began to fight his way back up the order.

David moved past his teammate before getting up close and personal with Scott Pye.

He made the move stick, moving up to P13, Anton now P15.

Anton soldiered on until lap 40, pitting for another set of tyres.

Electing to run it until empty, David pulled into pit lane five laps later for the sprint to the finish.

The final battle emerged with David trailing Nick Percat for 7^thplace. The #9 Holden was quicker through the entire lap bar one corner, but David wasn’t able to move past before the chequered flag.

DAVID REYNOLDS – 8^th

“My first stint wasn’t great, I was all over the place and lost a couple of spots. After the first stop I started to get some momentum back though and picked up some spots again.

“We lost a bit of speed in the high-speed sections today, but otherwise everything else was good, our team performed well, and I feel ready for tomorrow. We’ll have a rethink overnight about our setup to try and fix our exit and those high-speed sections.”

ANTON DE PASQUALE – 16^th

“Starting last was always going to be a hard-fought day. We went for an early pit stop and trucked along, pace was OK and we were picking up a few spots until an error at T4 which undid a bit of hard work.

“From then we did our own thing to the end, we weren’t in any battles, we just ran our own race. We didn’t finish as far up as we could have but we still made a good recovery from where we started.”