Jamie’s Commodore won’t be sidelined for too long
RED Bull Holden racing engineer David Cauchi has revealed the damage to Jamie Whincup’s No. 88 Commodore is not as bad as first thought after a major crash at Townsville’s Reid Park.
The King of Townsville’s pursuit of his 11th Townsville 400 crown ended on the 18th lap of Sunday’s race after he came unstuck on turn six.
Whincup had swung wide on the corner, losing control of his Commodore before shooting back across the track and into the concrete wall.
The Triple Eight Engineering machine shunted the wall at high speed, with a loss of oil pressure to the engine forcing the team to make a tough call of pulling out of the race.
But having returned to the garage this week, and gone under further assessment, the team is confident the car will make it back to the track as early as next week’s test day at Queensland Raceway.
“It looks like the damage is mostly just bolt-on parts, so the front rail extensions and all the cooling system at the front was damaged, which ultimately meant we couldn’t keep going,” Cauchi said.
“From what we’ve seen so far, there’s no chassis damage, so it’s just the bolt-on parts, a couple of suspension items and bodywork items.
“It is a bit of extra work before the test day in terms of renewing all the spares, so there’s a decent amount of extra work, but nothing too outrageous.”
It was not all bad for the team in Townsville, however, as Red Bull driver Shane van Gisbergen avoided the carnage of the 70-lap feature in the wet to score his second win of the season, becoming the only driver outside of the Shell VPower Racing garage to win two races this year.
“I was really happy that Shane, Shippy (engineer Grant Mcpherson) and the team won,” Cauchi said.
“We’re trying lots of things and some of them seem to be a step in the right direction, but the cars are far from refined and there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the package overall.”