Great to be home but we need rain to stay away
It could be a disaster today when it rains. Yesterday, when there was a little rain, it was slippery so that might cause carnage today.
It is great to be back home racing in Pukekohe. We had a mixed opening day yesterday but I’m pretty happy with where we find ourselves heading into race day. The first session yesterday was a real waste. We tried something that has been working for us this year but back on last year’s tyres it was a disaster. It was a change we could fix but not in the session. We persevered for a little bit but we couldn’t make it better.
We did a big workover on the car for the second practice and put it back to last year’s settings and immediately it was better but we were a session behind everyone both in car and in driving. We made a lot of changes and probably double-changed more things than we should have but I feel we learned a lot in that session and caught up.
My lap on the green tyre was rushed and not the best but to be that close to the front and not feel perfect — I think we’re pretty good.
I think we are in a happy place with our car so we should go straight into qualifying today, see what the weather does and try and get somewhere near the front.
The beauty of having a strategy race is you can do whatever — if you are in the top six, maybe even top eight, you are a chance of winning here.
It will be interesting to see what strategies people come up with because the lap is so short that if you’re in the lead and stop and take on 10 seconds of fuel you’ll come out a lap down so the strategies could be crazy.
Double stacking in the pits could be an issue today but we have a clear strategy on how to handle that.
We have to do what we can on our side of the garage to avoid it and make sure my teammate Jamie Whincup is the priority. He is really in the fight for the championship and it is team first so we will do what we can to help Jamie and that is fair enough.
We have accepted it but that means we have to change our strategy, whether that is pitting on lap one or two to be clear of it.
The surface upgrades on the track worked well. It hasn’t affected things too much because they are all on the straights and not in the actual corners. They have removed all the big bumps but they have kept the character and they have done a really good job.
On the back straight, it could be a disaster today when it rains — on slicks yesterday, when there was a little rain, it was slippery so that might cause carnage today.
It is no good for anyone if it rains; it is bad to drive in and no good for fans sitting up on the hill. I think you want it to be dry and simple. We got lucky yesterday because it cleared for both sessions. Hopefully we have a bit more luck on that front today.