THE low-key ace in Triple Eight’s brains trust has shed light on the team’s recent struggles across the Darwin Triple Crown and Townsville 500.

The Banyo squad failed to record a podium at either of those events, making for its first six-race run without a top-three finish since 2006.

Behind the faces better known to fans – i.e. managing director Jamie Whincup, team manager Mark Dutton, and race engineers Andrew Edwards and Martin Short – is technical director Pete Ringwood.

Ringwood, who joined Triple Eight eight-and-a-half years ago, admitted it has been a “hard slog” to extract qualifying performance from the Red Bull Ampol Mustangs.

“We’ve been talking about toolkit; there’s more for us to understand there,” he told V8 Sleuth.

“Sometimes the car is super sensitive, other times it’s less sensitive.

“It’s not that we have just forgotten all of our tools.

“We are finding that the sensitivity of the tools is different.”

Pete Ringwood (middle). Pic: Mark Walker

Ringwood offered praise to their competitors, with Grove Racing and Dick Johnson Racing (on the #17 side of the garage) consistently setting the benchmark.

“A small misstep anywhere and that’s enough to knock you out. That’s not shocking,” he said.

“You look at all the cars around us, they’re all strong in their own regards.

“We often find the strengths and weaknesses of one car might be the same as yours as well, so it’s hard to be different to them to capitalise differently. A lot of cars are trending in the same direction with all the same strengths and weaknesses.

“You’re trying to develop your understanding on the sensitivity of tools on old tyres in one practice session. It’s very hard to walk away from that and confidently say ‘that did this’… picking through it is best done at the workshop.”

As much as Dutton has expressed the reality that pain will come during Triple Eight’s learning of the Ford package, it was clear to see frustration from the usually cheery Will Brown on Sunday.

“We all share it,” Ringwood said of those feelings, given the eternally high standards they’ve set.

There are two-and-a-half weeks before Round 8, the Perth Super440, gets underway.