JAYDEN Ojeda is striving to become the second rookie in as many years to make Supercars’ finals series, but says that prospect is not altering his approach in any way.
The standout of the five first-year drivers in the field, Ojeda has ridden a midseason run of consistent results to climb to 12th in the standings, putting him within 126 points of the finals cut line.
He’s made a good start to this weekend’s Perth Super440 too, topping opening practice and placing eighth in the second session today on what was his 27th birthday.
“Just the shift in momentum has probably been the big thing,” Ojeda told V8 Sleuth.
“I feel like we showed flashes of it throughout the first part of the year but could just never put the weekend together, or I made a mistake or whatever which derailed the momentum for the weekend.
“I look back at the last few weekends now and each weekend has been a little bit of a step forward from the previous weekend, which has been good.
“Between me and the team, we’re obviously a lot more comfortable with each other. Working with Gilly (engineer Andrew Gilliam) has been great. It’s just a relationship that we keep chipping away at.”
As for how front of mind finals is?
“We’ll probably have a much clearer picture on it (after) this weekend,” added ‘Juice’.
“Obviously there’s still a few rounds to go before it all gets locked away for the 10, but ultimately our position doesn’t change.
“Each weekend is a new weekend for me, so just chip away at it day-by-day, race-by-race and see where that puts you.
“For sure it would be an awesome achievement to get, but it’s not going to change how we go about what we do.”
Saturday Supercars action at Wanneroo kicks off with Qualifying for Race 23 from 9:45am local/11:45am AEST.