Adelaide 500 Recap

Round 1 of the 2020 Porsche PAYCE Carrera Cup began on the unforgiving Adelaide Parkland’s Circuit. There were a lot of ‘firsts’ to overcome on the weekend, a major one being my firsts laps on the circuit. Initially it was quite daunting, the Turn 1/2 chicane as well as Turn 8 certainly lived up to their reputation! However, through the hard work from the team and myself we managed to quickly get on the pace and finish the first day of practice P4.

After a very positive first day, I was feeling confident leading into Qualifying. For the first half of the session I was running in the Top 3, however a small mistake and a brush with the wall ended my session due to bent rear suspension. Qualified P12.

In Race 1, I got away well but my race pace was hampered by uneven corner weights. This created some imbalance in the cars handling and made it difficult to progress through the field. Finished P11.

All was fixed for Race 2 on Saturday. Starting P11 we pushed hard on the first lap, being two wide for the majority of the time. However we only managed to snag one spot to finish P10. Starting to realise how competitive this field really is!

In Race 3, my best start of the weekend and another busy first lap saw me jump a spot into P9. However, after only one lap of racing a large crash at the rear of the field brought out the safety car which we would follow until the chequed flag. Just a bit anti-climatic!

Overall, I had a very enjoyable weekend and gained a lot of valuable experience, a small mistake in qualifying ultimately stopped us from achieving our desired results but that is just part of the game. So many positives to take away, including our strong pace throughout the event. The car rolled into the truck one one piece, now it’s pack at the workshop being prepped for the Australian GP in just two weeks time!

See you there!

Harri

Weekend gallery can be found here

Harri Jones25 February 2020