MEDIA RELEASE - 22 MAY 2016
NT CALLING AFTER BUMPY WINTON FOR HEIMGARTNER
Kiwi V8 Supercar driver Andre Heimgartner endured a tough weekend at the Woodstock Winton SuperSprint at Winton Motor Raceway this weekend.
After qualifying 24th, an early pit stop issue in Saturday’s 120km stanza saw the Melbourne-resident lose around 10 seconds of time in the pits. He would press on to salvage 23rd.
Come Sunday, he would qualify 24th after a frantic session that saw the entire line-up covered by just one second, and come home in 21st position.
It was a very bumpy 200km of racing for the 20 year old – with two separate lots of contact with fellow racer Dale Wood seeing some damage and compromised handling for Heimgartner’s #3 ABRO Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Holden Commodore.
IMAGE BY DIRK KLYNSMITH PHOTOGRAPHY
“The car was not too bad this weekend, it was looking promising. However, on Saturday we had the pit stop issue which certainly affected our ability to make a real go of it," said Heimgartner.
"Then on Sunday I suffered two lots of contact which put a dampener on things to say the least.
“We lost a lot of time in both instances and received some bodywork and handling damage and so on as a result, but not too much so of course we pressed on and did what we could, but obviously those kind of things don’t help you along at all, especially when it is such a competitive field.”
With a new track surface at Winton Motor Raceway, there was a lot of competitive and fast racing on show at the track this weekend.
“The new track surface was really good to race on. It was a lot kinder on the tyres than the old surface and I think it produced some better racing. Even though this weekend didn’t go our way I am looking forward to coming back here again,” said Heimgartner.
“It was great to see the fans out there too, it is always good to put on a show for a good and enthusiastic crowd and I hope they enjoyed their weekend at Winton.
“All in all, the car wasn’t feeling too bad and there was more in the set-up I think, but when you have races like those it is really hard to measure where you are at and we all just did what we could to bring it home and salvage a result.
“Hopefully we can have some better luck and a little less biff in the Northern Territory in a few weeks’ time!”
Heimgartner’s attention now turns to the Darwin TripeCrown (QLD) across June 17-19.
For more information, please visit www.andreheimgartner.com
FOR MEDIA ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT:
Amanda Jackson – Jigsaw Communications
Media Manager – Andre Heimgartner
Phone: +61 421 378 789
Email: amanda@jigsawcomms.com.au
Web: jigsawcomms.com.au