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A crash filled qualifying at the Adelaide 500 this afternoon has seen the session declared and much of the Supercars field, including PremiAir Nulon Racing, set to start tomorrow’s penultimate race of the 2024 Supercars season from non-representative positions on the grid.
The day opened for the Supercars field and PremiAir Nulon Racing with a 30 minute practice session at 1.05pm.
In that session, Jimmy Golding brought the #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro home in P12, reporting significant improvements for his entry following a busy night and morning of set-up changes.
Tim Slade’s #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro meanwhile also made steps in the right direction for practice, however those improvements were hampered by understeering issues which saw him classified P24 at the end of the outing.
At 5.30pm the 15-minute qualifying session began, with both drivers feeling stronger in their entries. However, six minutes in, three of their fellow competitors (Richie Stanaway, Cameron Hill, David Reynolds) would crash heavily (separately) one after the other at the notorious turn 8, with the crashes of Hill and Reynolds bringing out the red flag.
While all the drivers were thankfully unhurt, the subsequent delays to repair the track walls saw the session first suspended, and then declared, which means the times recorded in the opening laps will be used to decide the Top Ten Shootout line-up and race grid.
With neither of PremiAir Nulon Racing’s drivers having completed a lap at the time the red flags flew, they were classified P20 (Slade) and P24 (Golding) and will miss the Top Ten Shootout and will start Saturday afternoon’s race from P18 (Slade) and P22 (Golding), as Hill and Reynolds will be sent to the rear of the grid due to their roles in the session being red flagged.
Before lining up for the race, PremiAir Nulon Racing will be back on-track for practice three at 10.00am tomorrow (Saturday 16 November), while the race will begin at 3.20pm local time. They will then return to the streets of Adelaide for a final time this year on Sunday 17 November, with the running schedule consisting of qualifying (10.20am), a Top Ten Shootout (12.35pm) and Race 24 (3.15pm) (all times local). For the full schedule and event info, visit www.supercars.com
QUOTEBOARD: ADELAIDE 500 – FRIDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2024
Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Nulon Racing
“In practice two, things were definitely better (compared to yesterday’s practice one) – Jimmy found his rhythm and had some good lines, and Tim I think also was better but there were still a couple of things to work on for his direction. At the start of qualifying, we were bedding in tyres for the Shootout just in case, and then there was the incidents which damaged the fence and forced race officials to declare a red flag, which then went into extension time of 15 minutes, but that was not enough time to repair the track, so they have declared the qualifying. There was some discussion of a possibility that they would do another qualifying tomorrow, but that hasn’t eventuated, so we now need to prepare for a race coming from very far back, as Jimmy hadn’t completed a lap at all and Tim was on his first flier when it went red.”
Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“When we started the lap in qualifying I think it felt a bit better, but obviously you can’t know where you are at until everyone has done a lap time. I think we are definitely heading in the right direction from practice to qualifying with the set-up, but we didn’t get the opportunity to see exactly where it was at. Hopefully we have a decent race car tomorrow – it is going to be a pretty gruelling race with the temperatures forecast, but it wouldn’t be Adelaide without a day like that! The Cameron Hill incident happened in front of me, but I didn’t see how he did it, I was coming into the corner and backed off when I saw the dust, and then saw him pin balling from one side to the other, so I just slowed further and got by safely. It is never good when there is carnage like that.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“We had tuned the car up overnight and it was a lot better to drive today and in practice we were pretty close to the top ten and just needed to make another tweak to make that difference headed into qualifying. With how we ran our session, we did a warmup and then went and put tyres on, and then there was a red flag, so we didn’t get a lap in, and a lot of other guys didn’t get a lap in either, or just a warmup lap prior to their flying lap. So, the order is jumbled up a lot compared to practice and the session was declared, so unfortunately we will be starting tomorrow’s race off P24.”
For more information on PremiAir Nulon Racing, please visit www.premiairracing.com or follow the team on its social media platforms at www.facebook.com/PremiAirRacing/, www.instagram.com/premiair_racing/, www.linkedin.com/company/premiairracing/ and www.twitter.com/premiairracing
