THE Blanchard Racing Team’s road to redemption starts today.

For a time at The Bend 500, it looked like BRT ace James Golding would strengthen his grip on a coveted Supercars finals berth. But that would be turned upside down when a breach of the minimum driver laps requirement became clear, resulting in both of the team’s Mustangs being disqualified.

The verdict has seen Golding drop four spots to 14th in the points with just one ‘regular season’ race to come: the Repco Bathurst 1000.

BRT admirably has copped it on the chin, with team manager Kate Harrington providing insight on the bitter pill that had to be swallowed.

“It wasn’t something that we did intentionally, but we recognise that we had an issue in our timing software, and our processes needed to be looked at because there wasn’t a fallback if that was incorrect,” she told V8 Sleuth, with reference to not identifying that the race was headed for a time-certain finish.

“So we obviously spent a long week going through our processes and our systems to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

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“It’s not one person’s fault, it was a group of us that are responsible for that and it obviously starts at the top so I’m heavily responsible as well. It’s not good enough.

“We’ve done a lot of homework and had a long debrief and now we just need to move our focus to Bathurst and use that fuel of the disqualification of both cars to come out fighting and give the boys the best possible chance to get some good results there.

“It has really hurt our finals unfortunately, but it’s not over and we’re not giving up.”

Getting back on track today for an Aaron Cameron rookie test at Winton doubles as a timely opportunity to turn the page.

Cameron’s co-driver Zak Best, and Golding, will also be on hand, as will BRT’s pair of Super2 Fords driven by Lochie Dalton and Bailey Sweeny.

“The team is in a good position,” said Harrington.

Pic: Mark Walker

“We’ve acknowledged it, we’ve had a couple of days of dwelling on it, but now we’re moving forward and making sure we’re giving everybody else in the team as well as the drivers the best opportunity to perform at Bathurst.”

One of the biggest positives for BRT from The Bend was the performance of Golding’s co-driver Richie Stanaway, who took Car #7 from 18th on the grid to be fighting for the lead.

“Richie did an incredible job. We couldn’t have asked for a better co-driver in such treacherous conditions,” said Harrington.

“Just the way he performs on-track and the feedback he gives is really beneficial to our team in helping it move forward and evolve.

“He just did a flawless job, did what he needed to do, brought the car home clean. That car had literally not one scratch on it from The Bend.

“We obviously had really good car pace, so there are a few positives to take away from The Bend. It’s not all doom and gloom.”