STRUGGLE FOR A WINNING SET-UP
IT IS set to be a practice day of a different kind for the team at Kelly Racing.
Rather than just running through a final tune-up of their flagship #100 Nissan Altima, Rick Kelly and his team will be testing some wholesale changes.
They are changes the team has had to make as Kelly aims to climb his way back up the Supercars Championship standings, finding himself in 18th after the first half of the year.
Kelly endured a forgetful round at Darwin last start, slipping six places to 21 after qualifying 15th for the Saturday race, before backing up with a 16th-place finish after qualifying inside the top 10 shootout on the Sunday.
The team has pulled the car apart for a full service between events but he admitted they were still searching for a way to get the best out of the machine.
“It is mostly servicing between the two events and still trying to work out how to get the best out of the package we have got for this year, which has changed on last year,” he said. “We have done a lot of homework on that in between; it is more understanding how to get the most out of that.
“We have got two practice sessions (today) and that is a chance for us to really dial the car back into the surface, and dial the driver back into the surface, but more so test those set-up changes we have developed back at the workshop. We would normally just focus on dialling it back into the track but we have a couple of bigger things we want to try in those practice sessions to leapfrog us a little further forward.”
While Kelly kept the full details of the changes close to his chest, the 36-year-old Supercars veteran suggested it was a combination of hardware and how they looked at implementing it for each race.
“We have a little bit of hardware stuff; you always want new components on the car and the team pushing forward and developing,” he said.
“To have some new hardware on the car is one thing, but then also new set-up philosophies to try and get the most out of this circuit. When you head to an event you do a lot of homework on how you went the year before and the set-up you need and the driving style and so on. Last year we had the Castrol car in the shootout and we qualified fourth and were third at the end of the shootout.
“That is great pace for us here but the trick to this circuit is making it last through the race. It is very heavy on rear tyres and power down, and that is a real focus for the car. Hopefully we can put that process and planning into the weekend.”
Kelly will break out a special livery on the Altima this weekend as he celebrates a strong connection with Castrol Racing.
This year marks 100 years of Castrol Australia and Kelly will honour that milestone on the track.