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The Adelaide 500 has had no shortage of controversy so far this weekend, but PremiAir Nulon Racing now heads into Sunday’s ‘final day of school’ for the 2024 Supercars Championship season feeling positive after making significant improvements during today’s racing.
Both cars started near the rear of the grid for Race 23 this afternoon following Friday’s qualifying, which was first declared with many racers not having done a representative lap, or a lap at all, before the starting order was then again further reshuffled today with some starting positions, but not all, based on practice results from earlier in the weekend.
This saw Jimmy Golding start this afternoon’s 250km race from P21 on the grid in the #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro, while Tim Slade began the 78-lapper from P23.
Before they did so, the pair took to the streets of Adelaide for the third and final practice session of the weekend this morning as temperatures soared, bringing home finishing positions of P10 (#31) and P20 (#23).
In the race it was all about staying out of trouble early given the severely mixed up grid, intense traffic, and hot conditions; with both Golding and Slade keeping their noses clean while picking off positions wherever possible.
As the compulsory pit stops cycled through, long stint strategies were played and flawless pit stops were performed, allowing the team to finish out the race in P15 (#31) and P20 (#23) while displaying strong car speed late in the race which sets the team up well for Sunday’s action.
With the reliability of the team’s cars, tyres and set-up now proven, and a clean slate for tomorrow’s race (3.15pm) with a new qualifying session (10.20am) to be held in the morning ahead of the top ten shootout (12.35pm), PremiAir Nulon Racing is looking forward to hopefully ending their 2024 season on a high come Sunday. For event info, visit www.supercars.com
QUOTEBOARD: ADELAIDE 500 – SATURDAY 16 NOVEMBER, 2024
Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Nulon Racing
“Today is positive for what has been a difficult weekend so far – you don’t always value the race necessarily by the result itself, but by the progression and what happened during the race. We were in the traffic for a good quarter of the race early on, so we lost a lot of time down there, but as soon as we got our car with not too much traffic we could actually lap nearly as close as the leader. Towards the end we had a long stint; we decided to jump people at the end, trusting the reliability of the tyre and the car, and with Jimmy we actually had a very fast car towards the end on a used tyre, so that is very promising for tomorrow – we just need to qualify in the top ten and to exploit and use that quality of car. For Tim, it was way better than it was earlier in the week where it was very weak, and you are always going to have a difficult race (starting that far back). He elected to pit early to try and get out of all of the cars around, and he picked up a couple of spots for the race while having good late speed too which is positive, but he was even more in traffic. I can’t be too displeased about the result – as I said we were lapping quicker than people who fitted tyres later than us so I am really happy with that in itself, it brings a little smile – we have bounced a little bit back and we have something for tomorrow.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It was not an awesome day for us but not a bad one either. We were on the back foot from qualifying of course which was a bit of a weird one with the crash and then everyone being shuffled around for where they were starting again today, with some of the positions based off practice times, so that was a bit weird. But we pressed on with it and got a good start, picked off a couple of cars, and ended up coming through to P15 in the end there. Obviously we had some good things to make out of it and also good pace at different stages of the race, but ultimately we need to make the car a bit faster for tomorrow and there are a couple of strategy things we probably could have done better today. Eyes forward to tomorrow!”
Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It has been a bit of a weird weekend and we struggled a little bit up until the race, and obviously we didn’t get a run in qualifying with the mayhem that happened at the start there and we didn’t put a run on the board, so we started basically last because of that and just pretty much stayed out of trouble. We had relatively decent pace in the last stint, and I feel as though we definitely improved the car and have learnt a lot with where we have got to with the car, but just based on today, it is pretty clear the area that we need to improve for tomorrow. In saying that though, the conditions will be a lot different tomorrow with it being a lot cooler. With qualifying in the morning and then the shootout and race, it is the last hurrah for me full-time so hopefully we can find some speed and finish it off on a high.”
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
