Photo: Red Bull Holden Racing Team

Van Gisbergen and Tander confident after running dry setup in wet qualifying

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Triple Eight’s leading drivers in Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander say they’re comfortable in the #97 car and confident in the Holden Commodore’s dry balance after provisionally taking third in today’s Supercars Championship qualifying.

With van Gisbergen behind the wheel, the modern rain master was able to take third in qualifying for the Bathurst 1000 with the shootout still to come tomorrow, despite running a dry setup in wet conditions.

Van Gisbergen admits he’d hoped for a dry qualifying but is still confident in the car’s pace if tomorrow is run in the dry.

“We didn’t stress too much, today was a good day in the morning and then we just put wets on,” van Gisbergen said.

“Didn’t change the setup or nothing, just drove it. Probably pretty good for a dry setup, we were hoping it might dry up a little bit but it’s all good.”

Stepping back to a co-driver role this year after spending the past 20 years as a full-time driver, Garth Tander says he’s now feeling comfortable in his current position with Triple Eight and that he wants to get the job done for the team.

“It’s been good; I just jump in when they tell me to drive it, get out when they ask me to get out,” Tander said.

“The car’s good, as Shane said we had a really good couple of morning sessions this morning and probably found what we needed to find with the balance of the car.

“I’m really comfortable and enjoying it. I didn’t enjoy qualifying that much; that sucked, waiting and making sure we got in but I’m fully comfortable with my role with where I fit in the team and working with Shane.

“To be honest there’s not a lot of differences, looking at data. There’s been a couple of places where he does something a bit different to how I do it and vice versa; we’re learning off each other.

“It’s been interesting to see how Triple Eight go about things throughout the year and I’m pretty comfortable with all that now. It’s been good to get into race weekend mode and execute that.”