LADY LUCK ABANDONS PREMIAIR RACING IN MELBOURNE

In front of another huge crowd at the Melbourne Super Sprint, part of the Australian Grand Prix, PremiAir Racing headed into this afternoon’s race 6 of the Supercars Championship hopeful of a better day on the Albert Park circuit to celebrate Jimmy Golding’s 150th Supercars race.  

However, those hopes were soon well and truly dashed, with Golding and his #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro sidelined on the very first lap.

In what was his 74th race with the PremiAir Racing team, Golding – the 69th racer to achieve the milestone of 150 supercars races – got a strong start to advance to P5 from P7 and was moving through turn 11 when a locked up Chaz Mostert spun the #31 into the gravel on the first lap. An investigation into this contact is set to be held post-race. 

This left Richie Stanaway to carry the team’s hopes for a strong Saturday result alone – and for a while, it looked like a spot well within the top ten was on the cards for the #62 PremiAir Racing Camaro.

Like Golding – who was retrieved from the gravel under the first of two safety cars for the race – Stanaway had a very strong start, moving from P16 to P12 in the opening corners before taking advantage of the unfolding chaos around him to move up to P7, ready for the restart. 

Unfortunately, any luck that had been playing the way of PremiAir Racing then fell away – Stanaway had incurred a broken front splitter and deflated front left tyre when he was hit on the left front corner by a spinning Thomas Randle at the very first corner of the race, and he was now too compromised to hold off the advancing cars behind any longer. 

In what is only his second event with the PremiAir Racing team, Stanaway did what he could to maintain position despite the limitations of his Camaro, eventually crossing the line in P12 – a definite improvement over the P16 starting position, but far from what driver and team were hoping for. 

Golding meanwhile resumed the race a lap down after having rejoined at the rear of the train on the first restart, crossing the line in P23 to collect valuable championship points. 

The Melbourne Super Sprint Supercars action will conclude tomorrow (Sunday March 16), with race 7 of the Supercars Championship to commence at 10.25am local time. 

Qualifying for race 7 was held this morning as part of a back-to-back qualifying format, with Stanaway to start Sunday’s race from P4 while Golding will line up in P21

For event information, visit www.supercars.com 

QUOTEBOARD: MELBOURNE SUPER SPRINT – Saturday 15 March, 2025

Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Racing 

“Qualifying for race 6 wasn’t fantastic for the #62, we didn’t get the best on the first set of tyres unfortunately, and the second part was good, but not good enough. We did qualify pretty well for race 7, with a P4, which was a solid effort – it was the same car, just different prep on the lap and he was probably a little faster on that lap, being on his own he could do what he wanted, so it went better. In this afternoon’s race in the #62 we were P16 and got a very good start, moving through the traffic to P12, and then when a couple of things happened to him, he was into P7, which was pretty solid. Unfortunately though, in those first few laps, he has had damage on the front splitter and has lost front downforce, and then has cut a tyre on the centre of the front left, so all of a sudden you are compromised a little bit with under steer and the car is not that great, so from 7th you drop back to 12th. That is painful – people think you don’t have the set -up, but we have come from P16 and then damaged the car to get to P7 and then had to drive the car to the end. The story of the day is – you don’t want to start from P16; it is very difficult to make hair from there. 

“For the #31, it was very unlucky. Jimmy had a good start and was well positioned with a bit of a gap, but unfortunately Mostert wanted to do a lot of work and tried to take too many people too early and missed on braking and just took him off, it was as simple as that, and it was very painful. Jimmy got the wrong end of the stick again even after qualifying very well, so that is a bit painful. Running here the championship relies on the FIA guys from the F1, so you can’t take decisions directly (immediately): you have to present the case, which means all the punishment for bad driving is usually done after the race which is why it hasn’t been done during the race today. It will be done later, but it is not a good thing to lose a car and finish second last because of something like that.” 

Richie Stanaway – #62 PremiAir Racing Camaro

“We had a really good start and made up nine spots on the first lap, but then unfortunately we delaminated the front left tyre and from then on, it was just a case of surviving really. It is really disappointing of course, we wanted to bring home a solid result for the team, and for the fans – we have seen a lot of them this weekend with the crowd being massive and the new location for the Supercars teams being so fan friendly which has been great. Hopefully tomorrow, starting from P4, we can have a better go of it and hopefully finish what has been a really tough weekend on a better note.” 

Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro

“That is a bit of a difficult one to swallow today. I qualified well in seventh, got a good start, and got out of all the carnage, or so I thought, and got up to 5th. I got by Cooper Murray down the back through the sweeper, I got a run on him there. I then turned into turn 11 and basically just before the apex I got a massive hit in the rear – I think Mostert got out of control and just took me out. I was stuck in the gravel trap and went a lap down, so basically we just looked after it and tried to get some data for tomorrow. Unfortunately, it mean no result when we were looking pretty good there.” 

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.twitter.com/premiairracing