GC500 Friday Debrief

PremiAir Nulon Racing has left nothing on the table during day one of the Gold Coast 500 and will continue to work hard into the evening as they seek to uncover the reason behind a lack of green tyre pace which became apparent this afternoon. 

The Arundel-based team were on-track with the rest of the Supercars field for two 40-minute practice outings as part of the penultimate round of the 2024 championship chase today, working through a comprehensive program in the aim of striking the perfect balance required for the difficult racing challenge presented by the streets of Surfers Paradise. 

While in the first outing the team were feeling like their early event progress was on-track, with Golding and Slade setting the P9 and P14 times respectively in the #31 and #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaros, P2 left everyone scratching their heads when the expected performance lift did not materialise on green tyres (P17 Slade, P20 Golding). 

With Saturday’s program beginning with qualifying at 11.00am, the entire team is now pushing hard in the PremiAir Nulon Racing garages as the team seeks to solve this problem overnight, ready to hopefully land a spot in the coveted Top Ten Shootout (12.35pm) ahead of the afternoon’s first of two races for the weekend, which will kick off at 2.15pm. For event information, visit www.supercars.com 

QUOTEBOARD: GOLD COAST 500 – FRIDAY OCTOBER 25, 2024

Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Nulon Racing 

“We started okay in P1 with cars that were half-fast, competitive. But in all fairness, in P2, we threw tyres at the cars and we did not get quicker – so we need to reset now and try and understand why when we are putting on that green set we are not getting that performance, and it is the same sort of feel on both cars. When you put on the green set and don’t get that half a second or three-quarters of a second, you must be doing something wrong and we need to find a solution for tomorrow.” 

Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“It was not an amazing day for us, we were a bit puzzled in that last session. In the first session we weren’t too bad and thought we knew where we could find some time, but we rolled out for practice two and just seemed to be off the mark. There didn’t seem to be anything majorly wrong with the car handling, so it is a bit puzzling there. I didn’t get a clean lap on the greens at the end, so it is probably not truly indicative, but I think we still need to find something as there is something not quite right overall with the car. It is not one thing that it is doing really bad, which kind of makes it harder to fix, but we will knuckle down tonight and go over everything with a fine tooth comb and come out swinging tomorrow.” 

Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“In the first session I thought we were not too far away; there was a bit in me, a bit in the car, and with where we were I thought that should put us somewhere half decent. In the second one – it is hard to know what tyres everyone else is on, but we weren’t on new tyres at the start and I felt we were relatively competitive and the car felt better than what it did in the first practice session, but then we just had nothing on the new tyres. We did our fastest time on used tyres at the start and really struggled on the new tyre, which is a bit puzzling, so we have to work out what is going on there and try and get that better for tomorrow. 

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