Fabian Coulthard fastest in first V8 Supercars test of 2014
Fabian Coulthard was fastest in the first official V8 Supercars test day of 2014 at Sydney Motorsport Park. The Lockwood Racing driver lapped the track in 1:30.4787 and was close to seven tenths of a second faster than Nissan duo Todd and Rick Kelly.
“The weather made it difficult – wet, dry, wet, dry – so that definitely hindered our progress of what we really wanted to try. But by the end of the day we actually got through everything we wanted to. I could’ve done with a bit more dry running, or one or the other, not so much here nor there, but otherwise pretty happy,” said Coulthard.
The test day started wet but dried up for the second half of the day. Red Bull Racing Australia driver Craig Lowndes was second fastest Holden driver in fourth position ahead of Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney in fifth.
Top Mercedes driver was Lee Holdsworth in 14th position for Erebus Motorsport, lapping 1.6 seconds slower than Coulthard in the top.
Volvo Polestar Racing duo Robert Dahlgren and Scott McLaughlin completed many laps and was only hindered briefly with a broken power steering. Dahlgren was 17th fastest with McLaughlin in 19th.
”We had a strong first test day. The conditions could not have been tougher with torrential rain and a drying track with a completely new car. For me there was a lot of new impressions, but I got in to it and it is just so much fun. I am proud over the work that Polestar has done with the engine and GRM with the car. I am very pleased with the first day,” said Dahlgren.
The Ford Falcon drivers struggled during the test day as Ford Performance Racing had brought the wrong gear ratios. New parts had to be flown in to the test, meaning valuable time lost.
“I didn’t really get much out of today to be honest. It was good to get my mind back into the game and show off the new car and I was working with my new engineer for the first time which meant the day was productive. Though with the amount of rain hitting the windscreen for much of the day it made it hard to push too much. We didn’t get a great dry run in but we have an understanding of some of our new bits and while it wasn’t a great day I am pretty sure we weren’t the only ones,” said Winterbottom.
The 2014 V8 Supercars season starts in just two weeks with the Clipsal 500.
