The #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro of Jimmy Golding and David Russell will start Sunday’s Great Race from P13 after a hard-fought Bathurst 1000 qualifying session at Mount Panorama this afternoon.
Golding missed out on the top ten shootout by an excruciating margin of seven hundredths of a second (from the P10 time), while being just three tenths off the pole time.
While not the result they wanted, the team is remaining optimistic, pointing to the fast pace exhibited by the #31 since rolling off the trailer yesterday and the fact that the entry is still well in the mix with its P13 starting position on the seventh row of the grid.
For Richie Stanaway and co-driver Nash Morris, it was a less positive day, with the #62 set to start Sunday’s race from P23 – although things did start to turn around for the entry during qualifying, albeit without being reflected in the lap times.
The day began with practice three at 10.05am, before practice four rolled out at 1.05pm, providing a last opportunity to fine-tune qualifying set-ups ahead of the afternoon’s qualifying (3.10pm).
While practice four was for all drivers, PremiAir Racing took the opportunity to allow Golding and Stanaway to have interrupted time at the wheel, before letting all four drivers take laps across the final practice session.
Practice three brought a mix of qualifying tuning and race runs. Golding and Stanaway got off to a strong start, sitting as high as P3 and P9 in the first 15 minutes, and P6 and P13 at the half-way point as they logged solid mileage as the team worked through a comprehensive program.
With eight minutes to go, Golding slotted into P8 before heading back to the pits for a quick change, while Stanaway remained out on a long race run in P12, with the pair eventually closing out the session P15 and P21 respectively on the timing totem.
In practice four, Russell (#31) and Morris (#62) took the first laps, undertaking important time on track after much of their session Thursday was compromised by rain, before handing back to the main drivers for the remainder of the hour.
In his stint, Morris reported brake shudder at high speed, with the team enacting a rear rotor change – the first of a number of changes made across practice four for the #62 as they chased improvements amidst continuing issues reported by both Morris and Stanaway.
Golding meanwhile started strong before clipping the wall on turn two, however checks in the lane thankfully revealed no issues other than a few scuff marks. With 18 minutes to go, he would jump to P4, where he would eventually end the outing. Stanaway meanwhile closed practice four in P24 after his disrupted run.
Qualifying saw Jimmy and Richie again take the reins, with 40 minutes on the clock to decide who would do battle for the top ten grid spots, and who would occupy positions 11-27.
Determined to make the most of it, the team set up both drivers with three sets of brand-new Dunlop Pink (for breast cancer awareness) soft 25 tyres.
From start to finish it was a frenetic session with quick lap after quick lap being set across the grid, with Golding occupying positions within the top ten a number of times throughout and Stanaway reporting a better experience in the #62 than had been the case earlier in the day.
Eight minutes in, Golding sat P4 while Richie was P12 after their first quick laps, after which they swapped onto fresh tyres, ready to push again with 29 minutes left on the clock.
After their second runs, Golding was P6 while Richie was P15, and with 20 minutes left another set of new tyres was bolted on for Stanaway, while Golding took his with 10 minutes on the clock while P12.
The final six minutes saw the track absolutely packed as each member of the Supercars field looked to make their last opportunities count – and for a moment, it looked like Golding had done it, jumping from P15 to P8 in the final minute.
However, any celebrations of a top ten berth were quickly subdued as Golding was disappointingly bumped out in the final seconds, relegating him to P13.
For the #62, while a P23 qualifying result is disappointing, it does not fully demonstrate the resurgence experienced with the car during the 40 minute session. While it wasn’t enough for a better starting position, this does leave the team with a clear direction as it looks to continue its preparations tomorrow.
Saturday 11 October will host practice five (10.05am – co-drivers only – 60 minutes) and practice six (1.10pm – 60 minutes – all drivers), before the Top Ten Shootout at 5.05pm (45 minutes); before Sunday (12 October) brings the Great Race itself – following a 20 minute warm-up at 8.30am, the flag will drop for 1000km and 161 laps of incredible racing at 11.45am. Please note – all times local (AEDT).
For full event and scheduling information, visit www.supercars.com
For exclusive team insights and updates as well as live session coverage as the weekend unfolds, be sure to keep a close eye on the PremiAirR Acing WhatsApp Channel, which is proudly presented by Air & Allied Sales. To join, visit https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaEGGiJ2kNFlJu5eeo1H
QUOTEBOARD: BATHURST 1000, FRIDAY 10 OCTOBER 2025
Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Racing
“Overall, we had a positive day, definitely on the #31 we have been fast all day. We probably dropped a tiny bit of the ball maybe in quali, I think we were likely to be in the top five or top seven but we ended up P13 three tenths off the pace of the pole lap. So, thirteen cars in three tenths, a tenth and a half and you are already P6, but we didn’t do it. 
That is the reality. We never had a good lap in quali unfortunately, a lap where you put everything together on #31. On the other side of the garage today with #62 we struggled a lot early on with pace and the car not feeling right. We changed the steering; we did a couple of things in that direction. The car came half alive in quali so all of a sudden we are not where we want to be but it is not far away, not over a second. A couple of things we did to transfer what #31 did well onto Richie’s car didn’t seem to please him too much and we definitely will revert to the Triple Eight set-up. Funnily enough, during the day Triple Eight didn’t look to have anything special but come quali Feeney was in the top two so you have to give him respect; the way he has of setting up the car has worked on one lap, he was very strong during quali, from going on pole to being P3 to going back to P2, and I think we need to learn something from that a little. Now we can focus on the race really as tomorrow there is no shootout for us, they have given us a new set of tyres for the race. We are P13, so okay that is not fantastic, but we can race from there. The race car was pleasing, we had very good practice four and practice three pace in terms of racing, and it was definitely consistent so that was positive. We need to do more laps tomorrow, extend the laps, and make sure we cover all the detail and understand how at say lap 15, how is the car, does it start to drop too much, or is it coming back alive etc etc, and trying to understand if that happens what do we do during the race. We can change a bit of the setup, there are a few things we can do from the outside of the car which can help, the front roll bar, the rear ride height, the rear drop, there are three or four elements we can check and change during the pit stop. And that is now the key point: understand the car, put it in the right window and make sure we don’t understeer too early as that is always painful here, and just adjust the car to have a good balance for the end of the race, which is the last two, three stints.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get a complete lap how we would have liked; we had good sectors on different laps but not all on the one we needed it on, which is disappointing. I think the car was fast enough, it was pretty nervous, which probably showed with the times and making it a bit difficult to get the lap together, but I am sure a lot of people would have the same story. I think this weekend we are more worried about the race and I have a lot of confidence in the race car so far, we have done a lot of work on that and I looking forward to getting into it. We are still in the mix, and that is all that matters.”
David Russell – co-driver, #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“It was a productive day for us in the #31 car. We had practice three and the speed from yesterday translated across as the track evolved, so I think it has been good. We have been able to keep working away at the car. For us it was important to keep tinkering with little bits at a time as the track evolved. I got some laps in today but not too many at the start of practice four, so I look forward to the co-driver session tomorrow. We did the best we could in quali, I think .3 off pole, it is very tight – the whole top ten is basically covered by .2, so it is a very small margin. I think what we have to do is just keep focusing on our race car, which is very cliché but it is what counts on Sunday. Because a lot of those cars that might be able to turn one good lap, we need to turn 161 good laps, so for us that is what the focus is now and it gives the boys a chance for prep too, to go through everything before the race. In Porsche Carrera Cup it was a good day, I was able to off the front row win the race. It wasn’t without some drama towards the end where a car had gone off and drove around the racing line with sand all through it, so jeez it made for an interesting last lap. I thought to myself, don’t lose it on the last lap you have just led it for the last 40 minutes. It was good to get the win and it sets us up for a good weekend.”
Richie Stanaway – #62 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“After the positivity of Thursday, it was really disappointing to have the issues we did today. The car just didn’t feel right and it has been a frustrating day as we worked through potential fixes and didn’t find what we wanted. Through qualifying it did rally somewhat but we were still not where we needed to be which will see us start towards the back for the race. But with 1000km of racing to come, and with the unpredictability of this place, we still have hope that we can turn things around. We have a plan with what we are going to do on the #62 and we have two more hour-long practice sessions tomorrow to use to try and get it right for Sunday, and we will be looking to take advantage of every single minute we can.”
Nash Morris – co-driver, #62 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“It was a bit of a struggle on the #62’s side of the garage, we didn’t really have much pace when I went out there either, it was a bit hard to drive and Rich looks to have had the same dramas when he went out. We just have to look at what we can and put in what we can with what other info we get from other cars and what they are doing, that is the benefit of that, and we can just work on our race car now. I had a brake shudder initially and then still a bit of a splitter shudder and that kind of derailed my run a bit but that is all right, I will get a few more laps tomorrow. In Super2 we started seventh and got to fifth and hope to go better tomorrow with one more quali and race.”
View all the latest photos from PremiAir Racing at the Bathurst 1000 in the gallery link below — updated right through the weekend.
For exclusive team insights and updates as well as live session coverage as the weekend unfolds, be sure to keep a close eye on the PremiAirR Acing WhatsApp Channel, which is proudly presented by Air & Allied Sales. To join, visit https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaEGGiJ2kNFlJu5eeo1H
For more information on PremiAir 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.x.com/premiairracing