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2/08/2009 | Tander backs HRT as Holden's leading light

Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander claims his outfit will continue as the leading Red army team after making a bold statement at their home track in the Norton 360 Sandown Challenge in Melbourne today.


The 2007 V8 Supercar Champion said he and team-mate Will Davison had proven this weekend that despite the controversial switch of TeamVodafone to Holden in 2010 that his team would still make the running for the manufacturer.


Tander and Davison finished 1-2 today after Davison sealed a race win yesterday and Armor All Pole Position on both days. It led Tander to respond to a question about the future position of HRT in V8 Supercars with a very direct answer.


“HRT has been the number one Holden team for the last couple of years and it will continue to be the number one Holden Team going forward,” Tander said.


On the weekend that Holden announced their factory backing for another three years, and with Holden bosses Mark Ruess and his incoming replacement Alan Batey at the event, it was a fitting payback by Tander and Davison.


Both Tander and Davison also firmly believe they can beat TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup, who was third today, in this year’s Championship. Both drivers made up good ground on leader Whincup this weekend.


The Norton 360 event became a battle of strategy and tyres. Tander got full advantage out of his soft set of Dunlop Sport Maxx Sprint tyres while Davison battled through on regulation Dunlop’s for a great result.


“Second was the absolute perfect race for me then,” Davison said. “We had no soft tyres, had to fight pretty hard and lost out a little bit with a safety car. It was all going on there for a while.”


Whincup salvaged the weekend today despite an uncharacteristic stumble in qualifying.


“We haven’t quite been on our game this weekend,” he said. “It’s been a big week. We will go home, refresh and be ready for our home race at Queensland Raceway.”


Unfortunately it was a day of backwards at the start for Whincup who struggled in the mix of hard and soft tyres. He was lucky at one point to be on the track when he got completely swamped by half a dozen cars and shuffled back to 11th.


It undid a great starting line effort from ninth to make up several places. He got mixed up in a front pack battle for places but was shuffled out of position along the way.


At the front Davison cleared out to leave a battle of the Bourbons between Jim Beam Racing’s James Courtney and Jack Daniel’s Racing’s Rick Kelly in second and third. On the sprint tyres Kelly worked his way into second by passing Courtney on the main straight on lap four.


But Kelly got caught out by a safety car.

“You can't judge when the Safety Cars are going to come out and unfortunately there was one at the wrong time for our strategy and we had to put the softs on too early,” Kelly said.


“It's just a bit of bad luck unfortunately. We played our cards and unfortunately they were the wrong ones on the day. It was just bad luck, so there's not much we can do about it.”


Tander also went by Courtney with he and Kelly on fresh sprint tyres. Next stop for both of them was Davison who had used most of his soft tyres in yesterday’s victory.


As soon as the safety car was gone Kelly pounced immediately to take the lead. Tander joined Kelly soon after in getting past Davison who was getting swamped by the field on the different compound tyre.


But sheer car speed and the combination of the soft tyre ultimately prevailed for Tander.


The Bottle-O Racing’s Tony D’Alberto in contrast has a career best finish of seventh. Likewise WOW Racing’s Cameron McConville had a great day finishing fourth after at one stage threatening for a podium place.


Like Whincup, Ford Performance Racing pair Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom struggled to find form across the weekend.


Richards finished a fighting 12th in his Castrol FPR Falcon with Winterbottom 16th in his Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon. Just behind Winterbottom was Jim Beam Racing’s Steven Johnson who suffered from a bizarre mishap.


Johnson had come into refuel for the first time only for his team to find that they had not removed the bolted down petrol cap they had put on for qualifying to reduce drag. Next stop the team had to physically tear off the cap, losing loads of valuable time.
 

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