Pye Shows Good Speed in Rain Affected Practice at Perth SuperSprint
May 6, 2016
Track: Barbagallo Raceway
Race: Perth SuperSprint
Date: May 6th 2016
No. 12 MTU Ford – Fabian Coulthard
Practice 1: P 5 - Fastest Lap 56.71
Practice 2: P 20 - Fastest Lap 57.09
No. 17 MTU Ford – Scott Pye
Practice 1: P 9 - Fastest Lap 56.89
Practice 2: P 25* - Fastest Lap 56.03 – time not allowed due to track limit infringement
Recap Practice 1 and 2: DJR Team Penske has finished practice day at Barbagallo Raceway with lap times that did not really demonstrate the speed of the two MTU Fords. The team took the opportunity to run co drivers Luke Youlden (No 12) and Tony D’Alberto (No 17) in the opening one hour practice session. A wet track greeted the two co drivers, but a dry line soon developed giving both drivers a good hit out.
Fabian and Scott were soon into the cars and finished in fifth and ninth respectively. The rain came again for the second one hour session but the track dried quickly and both MTU Fords were running strongly inside the Top 10. The final run for Scott was good enough for second position even though rain started to fall right at the critical point of his lap. Running too wide at Turn 7, the stewards deemed he exceeded the track limits at the final turn and stripped the time. Fabian was also a victim of the late rain, not posting a competitive time as the track became too wet with a few minutes to run.
Saturday will see a further practice session followed by Qualifying and Race 1 over 120kms.
Fabian Coulthard Quote: "Days like this with wet and dry running make it hard to gauge just where you are relative to others, but I think that when we were on similar tyres to everybody else we were somewhere close. It would have been nice to get a hit out at the end in the MTU Ford but the rain came just at the wrong time. We were just a lap too late getting out on track. It means we are not really sure who did what and who posted the good times on good tyres.
"We will stick to our plan for the weekend and look to tune it up and come back tomorrow."
Scott Pye Quote: "We changed our philosophy with the set-up of the MTU Ford between P1 and P2 and I feel like Adam did a great job getting us into a spot where I was really happy with the car. It was much more drivable and I just felt a lot more confident with it.
"We made some changes in the second session and went out at the end on good tyres but unfortunately it rained as I was approaching the last corner. I committed to it but it was too wet and ran wide over the kerb and lost some time. The disappointing thing is that the time was good enough for P2 but the stewards pinged me for it. All in all not a bad day. I think we are reasonably competitive but we need to tune it up a bit more before Qualifying."