Symmons Plains Saturday

PremiAir Nulon Racing has enjoyed another strong day at Symmons Plains Raceway today, culminating in a top ten result with Tim Slade bringing the #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro home in P8 in this afternoon’s first of two 55-lap races for the Tasmania SuperSprint weekend. 

Slade’s result followed an impressive performance in the three-phase knock-out qualifying, setting the quickest and then second quickest times in the opening two segments before finishing up on used tyres for P8. 

Come the race, he encountered a small clutch issue off the start but was able to press on, before pitting early for the undercut on lap 18 for two right-side tyres ahead of a clean and uneventful remainder of the race. 

Today’s qualifying and race marked not only a strong performance for the #23, but also its first under new race engineer, Andrew Gilliam, who has been elevated from his data engineer role under the mentorship of PremiAir Nulon Racing Competition Director, Ludo Lacroix. 

On the other side of the garage, Jimmy Golding was looking good for his own top ten result this afternoon, sitting P10 in the final stages after having pitted early on lap 19, taking on two rear tyres. 

However, he would be thwarted by rear end and then gearbox issues in the final laps, seeing him drop back to P15. Earlier in the day, Golding had joined Slade in making it through to the final segment of qualifying, locking down P10 on used tyres. 

The PremiAir Nulon Racing team is now hard at work preparing for the third and final day of the Tasmania SuperSprint, which will once again feature a 20-minute practice session (10.20am), three-phase knock-out qualifying (12.50pm), and a 55-lap race (from 3.05pm). For event information and schedules, visit www.supercars.com

QUOTEBOARD: TASMANIA SUPERSPRINT – SATURDAY 17 AUGUST, 2024

Ludo Lacroix – PremiAir Nulon Racing Competition Director

“It was a positive day. We were only seven seconds off the lead which is a positive. We could have done better on strategy, that is down to me probably – in terms of tyres it is something we looked at but we didn’t think four tyres would be better, but actually it probably was. The base of the car was very acceptable and I was happy with that, we just started a little too far back – we made good progress through the race which was good, we just have to repeat a good quali for tomorrow. We had good quali setups this morning and we were doing some good laps, we just burned one too many sets of tyres and so we couldn’t qualify with a green set in the last ten, which is why we went backwards in the last qual. On race pace, there are a couple of elements we want to do a bit better on but overall, I am pretty pleased, and he (Andrew) is pleased – here’s Gilly as our new race engineer and in his first race he is in the top ten, so that is a good start for him! Probation passed!” he laughed. “For Jimmy, it is a gearbox issue, probably the same thing as we had yesterday, so there is something there that we don’t understand yet.” 

Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“It was not a bad day for me here in Tassie. Practice yesterday was average; I feel as though we learnt a bit with the car though. It was quite different today with the first practice session today being wet so we didn’t really get a proper read on the changes made overnight until qualifying. The car was really, really good in quali, unfortunately we just didn’t have a new set for the third part so we dropped down the order a little bit, but it is super promising that the car had as much speed as it did. The race was pretty uneventful, we had a bit of a clutch issue on the start but only lost one spot, and then we went round and round and had half-reasonable pace and finished P8. We definitely have some stuff that we can work on for tomorrow too. It is a case of rinse and repeat for tomorrow with the same format, but the weather is looking a lot clearer – the rain has been through now so it should be a little big easier to manage weather-wise.” 

Andrew Gilliam – Race Engineer for the #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“I was just elated to see P1 in the first part of qualifying, and then P2 in the second part of qualifying while mixing it up with the Triple Eight cars. Like Ludo said we had to ensure we made it through the quali sessions so we burnt up our tyres early and didn’t really have a good punch to throw in the final part, but we definitely have a really good qualifying car. We will probably make a few tweaks overnight to make sure we can confidently get there tomorrow with some greens up our sleeves. In the race, we reacted to Wood pitting, got a good undercut and made some progress throughout the race so it was a really solid day all up – it was really positive and I am really looking forward to tomorrow.” 

Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“We didn’t quite get it right today. Qualifying wasn’t too bad in P10 there; we are still lacking a bit to Tim’s pace in qualifying trim. In the race, we got a pretty good start and we settled in all right at the start and then we started losing a bit of pace, struggling with the rear of the car and then we also had a couple of gearbox issues as well – it was changing up from first straight to third a couple of times and then even getting into neutral. So that didn’t help our case, but we still have to work on the race car for tomorrow. I think everyone was a little bit different on strategy, but our car probably didn’t have the pace regardless of what strategy we did, with hindsight we will look again tonight and probably try something different tomorrow.” 

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