PREMIAIR Racing has narrowly beaten the clock to get Tim Slade’s Chevrolet Camaro onto the grid for the opening Supercars race at Albert Park.
The left-rear of Slade’s Camaro tagged the Turn 5 wall in the first half of Practice 1, creating enough damage to force the #23 entry out of Practice 2 and two lots of qualifying.
The team rolled the car out with little to no time to spare in time to start Race 1 from the pitlane.
Team owner Peter Xiberras offered his gratitude for the support shown by rival squads today, in addition to Triple Eight Race Engineering of which PremiAir is a customer.
Grove Racing leant PremiAir a fabricator, while Brad Jones Racing provided parts for the rebuild.
“Both Groves and Brad Jones’ boys were awesome,” said Xiberras.
“They were straight in, leant us their people, their welders, parts. They were in there helping us bend it, straighten it, weld it, they were awesome.
“The thing is too, the fact that they’re giving us their parts, if they have a bad one after us they might be giving us the parts that they need to get back on the road so it’s a pretty selfless act when you think about it.
“It’s the old saying: when the helmet is off you all work together; when the helmet is on you all want to beat each other.”
Sessions missed by both Slade and Shane van Gisbergen today have led to renewed questions about the sturdiness and repairability of the Gen3 cars.
“It’s a massive learning curve as well,” added Xiberras.
“The boys had the old car down pat but this one, it’s a whole new ballgame.
“We were hoping it was going to be an easier car to work on but it seems to be the opposite.”
