PROMISING START TO THE TAUPŌ SUPER 440 FOR PREMIAIR RACING
Two solid 30-minute practice sessions characterised by promising car speed and plenty of good data opened the Taupō Super 440 on Friday for both the #31 and #62 PremiAir Racing Camaros of Jimmy Golding and Richie Stanaway.
A delayed start to practice one due to a track timing system issue didn’t dampen the enthusiasm, with Golding and Stanaway straight out on track at the green light and immediately jumping into the top ten on their first flying laps. The session was declared with just under two minutes to go, seeing Stanaway record the 9th quickest time, while Golding, who was the only driver of the field to focus on long race runs, finished up P16.
In practice two, both drivers significantly improved on their times from earlier in the day. Stanaway took advantage of fresh tyres to rocket to the top of the timing screen mid-way through the session, before being pipped by Golding just moments later. With a focus on race runs, the pair held on to the top two times until the final moments, which saw Golding close out the session in P16, just ahead of Stanaway in P17.
The Taupō Super 440 action will continue Saturday (12 April) with back-to-back qualifying for race 8 and race 9 from 10:25am ahead of race 8 at 12:50pm and race 9 at 4:05pm.
The weekend concludes Sunday (13 April) with qualifying for race 10 at 10:35am, ahead of the top ten shootout at 12:50pm and race 10 at 3:05pm (all times local). For event information, visit www.supercars.com
QUOTEBOARD: TAUPŌ SUPER 440 – Friday 11 April, 2025
Ludo Lacroix – Competition Director, PremiAir Racing
“It was an encouraging day in one sense, but I don’t think we showcased the best of ourselves because we put the fresh tyres on for the second session, so we probably didn’t get the best set-up. I think both drivers understood what’s going to be needed to have a good race car here. So we’ve got good direction there, and we need to do a better job on the race car, and we need to now nail the quali car. In saying that, the quali balance and the balance of the race car is completely different, and we probably didn’t go far enough; we stayed too close to a race car, and that’s our mistake.
“We came here really thinking about the rear tyres, and I think we are going to have an okay race car, but we now need to do a quali lap. So, we will reassess tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we can get both into the top ten and get a good a race run and race car like we had earlier in practice one and can try to play in the top ten or top five, that would be the dream.
“The first qualifying session is on the soft tyre, which is the new soft, and the second qualifying session is on the super soft. We’ve been given two sets of super softs, and there is a quali session, and a top ten shootout on Sunday. So the question is, do you run one set in the first quali, miss the top ten, and don’t run any more, and you’ve got a green set? Or do you run two sets of green super softs in the first quali, and then you can run another set of used super softs in the top ten? No one used the supersofts today. Tomorrow, everyone will discover the track on the super softs for the first time.”
Richie Stanaway – #62 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“We had a solid day and got a lot of good laps in and good data to go through. We focused a fair bit on the race setup, so we need to change our focus now to qualifying tomorrow. I’m feeling pretty comfortable in the car, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Racing Camaro
“We had a really strong start to the weekend, running at the pointy end for a good part of practice two sitting in P1. We were on a green tyre, so it’s a good indication of what we can hopefully expect moving into qualifying and racing tomorrow and Sunday. Practice ran really smoothly, we got through everything we wanted to. We got all the laps in and tried a few different things on the car, so I think we have a good direction for what we need to focus on in terms of qualifying and race setup for tomorrow.”
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
