The Toll HSV Dealer Team last night confirmed that its V8 Supercar Championship leaders Garth Tander and Rick Kelly would be split for the first of this year’s big enduros, the Just Car Insurance 500, at Sandown on Sunday.
As expected, current leader Tander will be partnered by Carrera Cup Champion Craig Baird, while defending champion Kelly will share the #1 Commodore with former Touring Car World Cup winner Paul Radisich.
Team Manager Rob Crawford said splitting Tander and Kelly was the only sensible choice to protect the team’s championship lead in this weekend’s 500km race.
“A DNF for one would be bad news, but a DNF for both could be a disaster, ” he said. “With co-drivers like Paul and Craig in our team this year, it was always an option. The way Paul and Craig drove at our recent Winton test and here today in practice, it was a no-brainer. ”
The Kiwi stars did not get much of chance to get to grips with the Commodores on a dry surface in Friday’s rain-marred practice session, barely hitting the track before rain started falling.
However, they were consistently among the quickest on the circuit in wet and changeable conditions, contributing to set-up changes that helped the team make substantial progress in atrocious conditions.
In the end, both Toll HSV cars managed wet laps in the 1 min. 22s, placing them among the fastest in the second half of the practice session.
Before the rain started tumbling yesterday, Tander set the fourth fastest lap time of the day – 1 min. 12.18 sec. – while Kelly was fifth fastest on 1:12.19. However, the team was only part-way through its development process when the rain hit, and it believes it has considerable gains still to make in Saturday practice and qualifying.
Tander will be shooting for his third consecutive Sandown pole position in Saturday qualifying, while Kelly will be trying for his second Sandown pole, having been fastest in 2004.
Fastest in yesterday’s session with a best lap of 1:11.85 was last year’s Sandown winner, Jason Bright, who is partnered this year with Alan Macrow. Second fastest was the Falcon of Russell Ingall and Luke Youlden, with the DJR Falcon of Will Davison and Steven Johnson third quickest.
#16 THSVDT Commodore (4th fastest, 1:12.18 – Garth Tander):
Garth Tander: “We made some good gains in the dry but we ran out of time before the rain came. The car wasn’t really where we wanted it to be in the wet, but again, we made some gains with Craig in the car, and ended up setting some reasonable times on a drying line towards the end. We still have some work to do tomorrow, but we are in reasonable shape. ”
Craig Baird: “I think the car was reasonably good in the wet at the end, but obviously for me, I was kind of hoping to do a few more laps in the dry. But any laps in the car are good laps. It is in one piece and hopefully I have contributed something to the team. ”
#1 THSVDT Commodore (5th fastest, 1:12.19 – Rick Kelly):
Rick Kelly: “It was a good session for us. We needed a bit of running in the wet and obviously, a bit of running in the dry. We were able to make changes in both cars to make quite good gains. I think our car was in the top couple (of lap times) in the wet and also in the dry, so it is really good. Our co-drivers are doing really well too, so, so far, so good. ”
Paul Radisich: “In some ways, it is quite good like that when it is wet – it helps you to understand the car a lot better. Really, I am pretty happy, getting down to the 22s in that last run in the rain and not far off Garth’s time. But my job is to keep the car circulating, with good consistent times, and I am confident of doing that. ”
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