THERE were various winners and losers from qualifying for the Repco Bathurst 1000 but unluckiest of all was Thomas Randle.
The Castrol Mustang driver was bumped out of the Top 10 Shootout after the chequered flag in qualifying, as Shane van Gisbergen snuck in with a last-gasp effort.
That left a shattered Randle to line up 11th on the grid for Sunday’s race.
“It sucks,” he reacted to V8 Sleuth.
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“Annoying, that’s for sure. It’s everyone’s dream to make the Shootout here and something you watch growing up. It’s the best Shootout session of the year so everyone wants to make it.
“It was a pretty interrupted session so just trying to keep focus and not let any of that distract you and try to get the maximum out of the tyres.
“We were in there for pretty much the whole way and then it was right at the end ‘van Giz’ pipped us.
“I was pretty gutted to be honest because I really wanted to get in there for the whole team, Castrol Racing.
“It’s great we got one car through with Cam (Waters) in there and it would have been nice to have the two of us, but P11 is still a lot better than somewhere else further back.
“But it’s just frustrating. It’s ironic because it’s the longest race, people have won it from last, but everyone wants to get pole here. It just means so much, so you’re just trying to drive that little bit beyond what you’re normally comfortable with to beat the next lot of guys.”
Randle is tipping an intriguing race filled with tyre degradation, diverging strategies and marble build-up that will test drivers’ focus late in the piece.
He’ll tackle all that with co-driver Garry Jacobson, the two having spent endless hours working together at Randle’s Dream Simulation business.
“We’ve worked incredibly close, done a lot of stuff in the sim and the test days,” said Randle.
“For him to transition from being a natural left-foot braker to go to right-foot braking, it’s a big change and there’s probably not a lot of people who would say ‘yep, whatever we need to do to go fast, I’ll do it’.
“He has adapted really well and you wouldn’t even know now that he used to left-foot brake.
“From like the first sessions we did on the sim to where he is now, it’s just leaps and bounds improvement.
“I’m having so much fun with him, we’re very similar personalities and he’s just low maintenance. I’m loving working with him, I think we make a good combo and he’s doing a really solid job so far.”
Jacobson will be back behind the wheel of the #55 Tickford entry in Practice 5 today at 10am AEDT.
