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Right Where They Want To Be At Bathurst
“I would say this is the best prepared I’ve ever come into a Bathurst 12-Hour event,” two-time winner and new Audi R89 recruit Rod Salmon admitted at the close of the opening days practice for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-Hour.
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It was a sentiment echoed by both Melbourne Performance Centre [MPC} supported teams, with former GT Champion Mark Eddy suggesting that whilst still getting comfortable in his new car, that he was certainly feeling comfortable ahead of the race.
“Our pace is where we want it to be,” the 2011 race runner-up with then team-mates Craig Lowndes and Warren Luff agreed.
Paired with two-time winner Christoper Mies [D], the Eddy/Cini/Dean Grant car was one of the early pace setters along with Warren Luff, who this years joins Rod Salmon with Craig Lowndes to complete the Skwirk.com.au lineup.
Luff was quick early, topping the second practice session, but admitted that the chances of completing a string of quick laps was going to be almost impossible.
“Traffic will be a big key in this race,” he admitted. “There are so many cars on the circuit, and such a big disparity between speeds that you’re really going to have to be patient.”
“It’s hard to predict with some of the cars which way they’re going to move, so you’ve really got to be cautious,” Craig Lowndes added.
Both drivers were quickly into the 2:09/2:10 bracket and within touch of the leaders and running full tanks, but the focus was more on providing car owner Rod Salmon with valuable seat time.
Salmon relished the extra laps, the two-time 12-Hour race winner [2008/09] settling into a pace in the mid 2:15s.
“This is a race that’s about racecraft, and not so much about speed,” Salmon said. “I have to be careful not to get sucked into trying to race a faster pace, because at the end of the day, I’m racing guys for a championship, as well as the 12-Hour, so I need to focus on matching the guys I’m actually racing in that championship, and give the car to Warren and Craig to go after the outright race win.”
Whilst Mies adopted the pace-setting role for the Network Clothing/Hallmarc Audi R8 ultra, he turned relatively few laps, leaving the bulk of the three 50-minute practice sessions to his ‘local’ team-mates.
“The car is very nice. I haven’t done too much running on Pirelli tyres before, but I was very impressed with their pace and consistency, so I think we really have a great package for Sundays race.”
“The car is fantastic, no question,” Mark Eddy admitted. “All three of us are running at a similar pace, which is what we were looking for, but I think we’ll all feel more comfortable once we’re into a rhythm and running longer sessions - but that won’t come until race day. All up though, we’re on target and ready for Sunday.”
PaddockTalk Perspective
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