Jim Beam Racing News

It was a tough day at the Nikon Super GP for Jim Beam Racing drivers Steven Johnson and James Courtney, with Courtney qualifying for the Top Ten Shoot Out only to come off second best with a tyre barrier at Turn 2 of his flying lap. It was one of those moments in time where you can see it about to happen but there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it to change the outcome. With minor panel and structural damage car #18 would start Part A of Race 19 from position 9 after Russell Ingall was penalised during his shoot out lap.

With both cars back in reasonable shape, both Courtney (P9) and Johnson (P19) had reasonable starts and managed to stay out of trouble heading down the straight to the southern most point of the circuit. It wasn’t long though before the Safety Car was deployed after separate incidents involved D’Alberto and Jason Richards with Courtney back to 10th and Johnson moving up to 17th for the first restart.

Both Johnson and Courtney had reasonable pace through the first part of the 150km race with Courtney coming in for his compulsory pit stop first. Johnson stayed out on the track which proved to be the right strategy as he continued to slowly increase the gap time from other cars that pitted early.   With 18 laps to go, Johnson was called in for the compulsory stop and would end the race in P10 moving 9 spots up the order which was a strong performance in what was a “frantic” race.
Courtney however did not fair as well. In the back third of the race he reported a possible tyre pressure issue with the front left and backed off to preserve his position. While the strategy was sound, Courtney ended up stationery in a tyre barrier in an almost identical position at Turn 2 where he had stopped earlier in the day. It would be a DNF for Part A of Race 19.

Part B of Race 19 would be a fresh start for Johnson and Courtney who would start from P10 and P23 respectively.  Johnson appeared to be restricted by a few drivers shortly after the start but settled into a good race rhythm – something that Johnson’s Engineer Mark Fenning was expecting.
‘The longer he stays out there the better he gets” said Fenning who brought Johnson in to pit around Lap 18 and one of the last cars to do so.
Johnson continued pushing through the field and ended up finishing a credible 11th for the combined results for Race 19.

While Courtney was in and out of pit lane after 10 laps, his day didn’t get any better as he battled with a clutch problem which hampered his race rhythm for the back half of the race. Courtney would cross the line in 16th and would finish 26th for Race 19.

Jim Beam Racing’s Sporting Director Adrian Burgess showed mixed emotions at the end of today.
“We made some set up changes between today’s two races and found some speed in both cars but today was not a day without incident. ” said Burgess
“Race Two was more about track position thanks to a lack of safety cars, but tomorrow we start with a clean sheet of paper and here is hoping that we can get track speed and position working together”.

Qualifying for Race 20 starts at 9.15am (Qld time) with the first of two 150kms kicking off at 11.05am.

 

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