BUOYED by a superb drive in the Perth SuperSprint opener, Todd Hazelwood is desperate to make the best opportunity of his Supercars career count.
After stints with Matt Stone Racing (twice) and Brad Jones Racing, Hazelwood landed a 2023 seat at the Blanchard Racing Team.
BRT made headlines in the off-season by becoming the first team to test a Gen3 Supercar, and the CoolDrive entry was best of the Mustangs at the Sydney Motorsport Park all-in test in February.
Hazelwood though was just 19th in the points entering Round 3 at Wanneroo Raceway, before delivering a 12th to fourth performance yesterday.
In fact, Hazelwood finished less than two seconds off victory after his late charge through the field, and picked up five bonus points for fastest lap.
Now he has two more opportunities in Perth today to secure BRT’s maiden Supercars podium.
It comes amid an important year for his career – his sixth full-time in the main game.
“This sport is so challenging and it’s so tough and you need to just keep working at it because you just never know when your opportunity to rise might come,” the 2017 Super2 champion told V8 Sleuth.
“For me, I certainly felt like that was an opportunity for me coming here to the team at CoolDrive Racing.
“On paper it’s by far the best opportunity I’ve ever had in the sport so now it’s up to me to maximise it and get the most out of it.
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“We’ve had an up-and-down start to the year, there has been a lot of potential and a lot of promise but the execution of it hasn’t quite been there yet.
“So to come here this weekend and really start to see I guess some momentum and maybe a change of performance going in our favour is great.
“Although looking on paper you’d say the year probably hasn’t gone as planned but there has been a lot of potential there, so that makes me excited and it certainly keeps me motivated to keep pushing myself to get more out of myself and hopefully (today) we can taste the reward of that.
“I’m a firm believer there’s no luck in this game, you have got to make your own luck and you have got to work hard for it and I’ll keep pushing hard until I’ve achieved what I want to achieve in this sport.”
A result today, he hopes, could open the floodgates for both himself and BRT.
“Success brings success, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to experience that in the past in other categories and in Supercars before as well.
“For us as a small team, although we’re small by scale, certainly by effort it’s one of the best I have ever seen.
“Everyone rolls their sleeves up and gives it a thousand percent every day of the weekend.
“There’s a big expectation on everyone to get the most out of each other here and for me I really enjoy that environment and I would love to obviously get the team’s first podium at some stage this year.
“If it’s (today) or not, who knows, but at some stage this year that has certainly got to be a goal for us.”
The first of two Supercars Championship qualifying sessions today starts at 9:15am AWST/11:15am AEST.
