Sandown Friday Debrief

Three practice sessions at Sandown International Raceway have set the PremiAir Nulon Racing team up for a busy Friday evening as they prepare for the rest of the 60th anniversary Sandown 500, which will continue with practice and qualifying tomorrow ahead of the big race on Sunday.

Across today’s sessions, the team prioritised working through a preparatory program focused on the race car, rather than setting up a qualifying car, to ensure they have the data and learnings they need to best inform their Friday night set-up alterations ahead of a big weekend ahead.

Practice one saw the main drivers of Tim Slade (#23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro) and Jimmy Golding (#31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro) command the entirety of the driving time in P1, locking down P13 and P23 respectively.

In practice two, it was time for the co-drivers to call the session their own, with up and coming Super2 star Cameron McLeod (#23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro) – who was 10th and 12th in the Super2 practice sessions today in the #92 RM Racing Cars with PremiAir Racing entry– and enduro specialist David Russell (#31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro) strapping in for another 30 minutes, finishing P21 and P24.

In the third and final session for the day, all four drivers took time out on the track, with a finishing result of P12 (#31) and P23 (#23).

Complicating things is the fact that tomorrow’s weather conditions are expected to be vastly different from today’s dry running, with rain expected Saturday before a return to bright and sunny conditions for race day.

PremiAir Nulon Racing will return to the track at Sandown International Raceway on Saturday (14 September) for two more practice sessions (practice four at 9.50am and practice five at 12.00pm), both for all drivers, before qualifying is held at 2.10pm ahead of the Top Ten Shootout at 5.20pm. Sunday will then host a warm-up at 9.55am ahead of the Sandown 500 race start at 2.05pm.

QUOTEBOARD: SANDOWN 500 – 13 SEPTEMBER, 2024

Ludo Lacroix – PremiAir Nulon Racing Competition Director

“It was an interesting day today and we focused on race set-up for both cars. We tried to give laps to the co-drivers also even in the sessions that weren’t co-driver only. We started with quite a heavy car to make sure we understand what is going to happen early in the race when the cars will be full of fuel, which means we probably weren’t very racey in practice one, as we carried a lot of fuel. In practice two it was the co-driver session and was all about getting them familiar with the cars, familiar with the systems, and learning a couple of tricks around the track for that particular car. David is a seasoned contender and so we don’t have to teach him anything, really while Cam needs a little more help, but we are very happy with how he is going. In the last session most of the teams in pit lane were treating it like a qualifying session or prep for qualifying, where we decided to instead go for race set-up again because tomorrow is probably going to be raining. So we believe it will be more important to be strong in the race than strong in qualifying, so we wanted to grab as much time as we could today focusing on the race car. I think we did some good things as we are way closer even trying not to be on qualifying set-up on green tyres, so that is a positive. We have to hope the weather turns good for us and it turns out we have done the right thing. We have two forty-minute sessions tomorrow, more than today, which were 30, so we hope to do half a session on race set-up and then concentrate on qualifying if the weather permits. It was a pretty solid day for us and while it doesn’t relate in the lap times or the classifications, we are happy with where the cars are at this stage.

Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

We were definitely a fair way off in practice one but we have improved throughout the day. We have a little bit of confidence; we worked on the race car all day and we didn’t run any new tyres in the last session – the whole philosophy and my thoughts coming in were to work more on the race car than the qualifying car. We still have a bit to work on tonight. Camy did a good job and had good speed. We are not quite there, but we just have to keep working away and see what we can come up with overnight.

Cameron McLeod – co-driver, #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

It has been a decently big day for me but I think I am adapting quite well between the different cars (main game car and Super2 car) and I feel like I am trucking along really well at the moment. There isn’t much between the cars where you have to drastically change between them, it is more that it just feels a little different. The main game drive is certainly a little harder, and most people had greens where I haven’t had greens as yet, so I am trying to balance that and not get too carried away going off what other people are doing on green tyres. When I do get some that will see things even out and level things out a bit. I am looking forward to seeing what we can do tomorrow.

Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

We kept the car on track and tried a few different things as we focused on setting the car up for the race. It is hard to know where everyone is at this stage with the differences and unknowns in how much fuel and what tyres people are running, so it is pretty open and I don’t think we will really know where we are until the race. So really, we just have to focus on ourselves and that is what we are doing. D-Russ did really well out there today and kept it on the black stuff too, and we are looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow.

David Russell – co-driver, #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

We have both been pretty focused on having a fast race car for Sunday, and while we haven’t quite got that yet, I feel we are going in the right direction. I wasn’t entirely happy with my two runs and there are things for me to work on driving-wise, but with the co-driver session this morning and some miles I think I will sleep on it and then get some more miles tomorrow and go from there. I am feeling more in tune with what the car is doing now and feel I can be valuable and give some feedback. My laps today were purely focused on what the race car will feel like and what I need to do in the car to keep the tyres alive and keep the lap times at a certain pace. I think we are pretty close so far. We also did some driver change practice and we are at the fine tuning stage with that working on procedural things and also if something goes wrong, how we manage the communication there – a quick fix might save you five seconds and with how competitive it is, that five seconds could be five or more spots, so you have to get it right.

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