THE saying that races are won in the workshop could very well ring true in the upcoming week off before Supercars’ Sandown semi-finals.
Seven drivers are left in the hunt after a wild and wet Gold Coast: Matt Payne, Broc Feeney, Brodie Kostecki, Chaz Mostert, Will Brown, Cam Waters and Anton De Pasquale.
Just 12 days separate the Gold Coast 500 finishing and track action starting at the Sandown 500 – and that’s without factoring in travel time south.
“The big thing is, it’s again a short turnaround,” said Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton.
“The cars get absolutely hammered here (on the Gold Coast), so you got to go through the cars with a fine-tooth comb.
“You’ve got to make sure that reliability is key this time of the season, you want to be fast but you’ve also got to finish races and finish races strongly.
“We actually had some electrical issues on Car #88, which was a little bit scary towards the end of that race – so we need time to understand what’s happened there and then just mechanically go through the cars.”
Feeney (#88) bounced back from a disappointing Saturday in which he plummeted from pole to ninth, to win the Sunday leg.
Brown meanwhile sunk like a stone on Sunday, going from the front row of the grid to 11th at the flag.
“Performance-wise, we had moments with both cars, moments of pure brilliance, but it wasn’t brilliant from Friday to Sunday consistently,” said Dutton.
“So, we do have work to do on that front as well going into Sandown to make sure we’re at Adelaide with two cars in contention.”