Irwin Racing heads to Falken Tasmania Challenge

“Irwin Racing Needs A Good Result” - Alex Davison

#4 Irwin Racing: Alex Davison

Photo by: Chris Von Wieldt

IRWIN Racing has had very competitive speed at the recent Bathurst and Gold Coast events, but needs to put a result on the board in Tasmania this weekend to maintain its place in the championship top 10.

On the Gold Coast a fortnight ago, IRWIN Racing qualified in the top five on Saturday, it had pace all weekend, and was running near the top five in the Sunday race; but on-track incidents prevented strong results.

The same can be said about Bathurst; the team was inside the top 10 in the practice sessions and narrowly missed out on the top-10 shootout, it had the package to be a top 10 runner, but fell short or expectation.

History shows that on the Gold Coast, German co-driver Marc Lieb was hit from behind in the Saturday race, forcing him into the concrete barrier, requiring extensive repairs, and on Sunday Alex Davison was handed a drive-through for a dangerous merge into the fast lane after the pit stop.

At Bathurst David Brabham locked a brake and hit Jack Perkins, resulting in a drive through, and the damage in that incident caused engine issues later in the race.

All the signs were there, the IRWIN Ford has been fast, but the results have not been forthcoming.

This weekend in Tasmania, Davison says that the team needs a good result to ensure he stays inside the top 10 in the V8 Supercars championship.

The V8s are racing at Symmons Plains Raceway, near Launceston, from Friday.

What IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison had to say:

“We're hanging on to the top 10 of the championship by our fingernails; IRWIN Racing needs a good result this weekend to keep us in the top 10. We haven't had much luck for a while now, since before Phillip Island actually. Phillip Island, Bathurst and the Gold Coast were disastrous even though we found some good form and were on the pace at Bathurst and the Gold Coast. In both of those events I stood in the garage and watched my car get involved in accidents. Now we are back into sprint mode and I’m confident going to Tasmania that we'll be fast again. I'm confident that we've found the reason why we were struggling through the middle part of the season and things are making sense again. It’s better late than never, but we hope to string a few good results together In Tasmania and over the next few weeks. I’m pretty sure that we'll have a pretty good IRWIN Ford in Tasmania and that we can be in the hunt there.”

What IRWIN Racing’s engineer Dan Kroehn had to say:

“To be honest I think IRWIN Racing has definitely had the speed in the last two rounds to be a lot better off than our results have shown, which is extremely disappointing. We need to have what Ross Stone would say is a complete weekend. This is where we do a good job in practice, we follow up in qualifying and then get the result in the race. We've had the pace in practice and qualifying but at the end of the day it’s the result in the race that puts the points on the board. We'll be trying to start up the front of the grid in Tasmania, hopefully have the car speed that we've had in the last couple of rounds and then convert that into some strong points come the weekend.”