PremiAir Nulon Racing had plenty to celebrate at the 60th anniversary Sandown 500, with the team breaking through for its first-ever podium with Jimmy Golding and David Russell finishing in third place in the #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro.
As well as being the first podium for the newest team in the Supercars paddock, established mere weeks before the start of the 2022 season, it was also the first podium for Golding.
The result also sees Golding and the team advance from ninth to sixth in the drivers’ and seventh teams’ championships ahead of next month’s Great Race – the Bathurst 1000.
The #31 started the race from P14 following a wet qualifying yesterday, but the team’s laser focus on race day preparation well and truly paid off when it came to the 161 lap outing.
Golding advanced four spots in the first lap to P10, handing over to Russell in the first round of stops and advancing to P8. Russell put in a great effort to keep the #31 in the top ten, running as high as P4 when the pit stop with 73 to go under a safety car saw Golding take the #31 back over, rejoining in third position.
From there, it was up to Golding to hold onto that podium position and hold on he did – although the racing gods did not make it easy, throwing multiple safety cars in the final stages, leading to a time-certain finish which culminated in an outright sprint over just a couple of laps when the final restart commenced with just 3 minutes and 36 seconds on the clock.
Emotions were understandably high for the team following the result, with team boss Peter Xiberras clearly overwhelmed in his post-race TV interview and the smiles unable to be wiped from the faces of the entire team, including Golding, Russell, and the #31 Race Engineer Romy Mayer in particular.
It was a tougher day at the office for Tim Slade and Cameron McLeod in the #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro.
An issue on the start saw Slade drop a spot early, before he had some contact with David Reynolds during the full course yellow slow-down, which then caused the drivers’ door to be difficult to open in the first driver change for McLeod to jump on board.
The pair recovered to P16 before McLeod served a drive through penalty for contact with Jordan Boys, rejoining on lap 50 in P23. From there, the pair put their head down to work their way back through the field to be P7 at the final stop with 17 laps to go, however a problem with the right rear saw valuable time lost, with the #23 rejoining P14, recovering to P12 by the time the checkered flag flew. Earlier in the day, McLeod – who made his main game debut this weekend – had finished his second Super2 race of the weekend in 17th in the #92 RM Racing Cars supported by PremiAir Racing Holden Commodore ZB, after having qualified 8th.
PremiAir Nulon Racing will now turn their attentions to a test day, before heading to Mount Panorama for the Bathurst 1000 across October 10-13. For event information, visit www.supercars.com
QUOTEBOARD: SANDOWN 500 – SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2024
Peter Xiberras – Team Owner, PremiAir Nulon Racing
“This is a bit surreal. It feels like a long time coming, and to do it at this fantastic facility with the rich history this place has and as the precursor to Bathurst, it is just great. And to have the new livery, and this guy here (Russell) adding the flavour…I am just so proud of the whole team, from the drivers to the engineers to the mechanics to, just everyone, it is amazing and I can’t thank everyone enough. I am so proud.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It was a bloody awesome day, to finish P3, it is just incredible. I can’t thank Peter and Carmen enough for giving me the opportunity, and everyone on the team for all the hard work. We have been working hard this year and getting really close, and I am absolutely stoked for it. I can’t wait for Bathurst now!” he said. “We had good pace, and the team did a great job. We focused on all the race stuff from the word go and it paid off. And this bloke (Russell) did an excellent job, and I can’t thank him enough. Everyone has done an unbelievable job, and we just haven’t given up. It has just been all about hard work and determination and we got there, now we just have to keep on pushing.”
David Russell – co-driver, #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It has been a great day, just look at the silverware we have got! It is always a happy day. It is very rewarding for me not only to team up with Jimmy and see him get his first podium but also the first for the team as well. I can see how hard everyone is working behind the scenes. To see Jimmy’s stints, even at the end when the pressure was on, was very good and it was great to be a contributor. I was happy with my stints, and also happy to get out and hand over to him to finish! It has been a very special day not only for myself and Jimmy but also Peter and Carmen and the whole team.”
Ludo Lacroix – PremiAir Nulon Racing Competition Director
“We had very good speed on car 31, very good work from Dave Russell, he actually brought us a lot of freshness and calm which was really positive for us I think, and outside vision which was good. Jimmy was really good in the race I thought, the second part of the race he was very careful, attentive, I think the fact that he felt into the top five and then was going into the fight for the last 60 lap made him a more angry and talented driver, I am really pleased for him. We need to repeat more of that attitude, did we have a very good car, probably, but some of it comes from them when we put them in that position and they can see the finish line, the light at the end of the tunnel and it brings out the best in them, we don’t always get the best out of them. So that was positive. It was a tricky race, because a lot of safety cars, a lot of decisions to make on the fly, pitting, not pitting, pitting for tyres, pitting for driver, pitting for fuel, so that was actually a nearly faultless race (for 31). We had a cross thread on 23 which probably cost us five spots at the end, Tim was around p7 at the end before the last safety car where we changed the four tyres and had a cross thread on the rear, which meant in changing the tyre the spare tyre was not a green set so that was a poor set unfortunately so that cost us twice in costing us time and it cost a good tyre, but it mainly cost time. There was also a bit of shenanigan on 23 earlier in the race, Cam got involved in a couple of fights that cost us some time, but from there they, basically 22nd/23rd, we came back to P7 so that was a positive too, it showcased that by staying composed and calm we can come back and overcome a setback, so that is a positive. On the weekend overall, we only showed speed on the warm-up and Sunday, which is a little late to me, we need to be more pacey early on, but what is very positive is rewarding Peter and Carmen with the first podium after a couple of hard years and a lot of investment humanly and financially and I think that is really important to us to thank them for all they have fought and to give them a chance to believe we can go better. The pace of car 31 was really good and that is really encouraging and we need to repeat that at Bathurst, we have one test day and then Bathurst and we need to keep doing what we have done.”
Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It is awesome for the team to get their first podium and for Jimmy to get his first podium. I am super happy for the team and Peter and Carmen, it is really well deserved,” Slade said. “For us (the #23), on the start I don’t think the line locker worked and I felt like the car was creeping so I wasn’t able to load the clutch, so we will have to look at that and see what happened there. We only dropped one spot, but yeah it wasn’t a good start. Then we sort of just trucked along really before I had a bit of contact with the full course yellow situation with Reynolds ahead – he went up the back of Will in front of him and then I went into the back of Dave. We then struggled to get the door open at the pit stop so we lost a bit of time at that first driver change because of the door being hard to open. Then Camy had a drive-through for contact, so we were sort of behind most of the day. We struggled a bit with the car, it wasn’t really looking after its tyres very well, but we had decent enough speed and ended up seventh (before that last stop) but then we had a problem with the right rear and dropped back. But the result for the team is awesome, and now we have a test day and then it is onto the big one, so I am looking forward to that.”
Cameron McLeod – co-driver, #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“I am pretty happy with how I performed lap time wise, but it is a bit of a shame about the contact and drive through penalty that I got, and that last pit stop. Tim is obviously feeling it a lot more than me. I am pretty happy though with the way I performed during the stint, minus hitting (Boys) off. I was getting hustled off a lot and he had hit me off the last two corners by bombing me hard and having me off at the exit. I didn’t mean to hit him off, but I wasn’t going to be easy on him either, there were a lot of accidents in the race for the whole field and we will regroup and go forward and look forward to Bathurst.”
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
