RICHIE Stanaway’s maiden laps in a brand-new Supercar have validated his high hopes for the season ahead.
Stanaway is back for his first full-time Supercars season since 2019, and joins Grove Racing as a Bathurst 1000 winner.
Grove finished 2023 on a high and has assembled GR03 specially for its Kiwi recruit, who shook it down as the #26 Penrite Gen3 Mustang today at Winton.
“It was a good day for us,” Stanaway told V8 Sleuth.
“We only really used five laps to check the car was running as it should and the ergonomics were okay, which they were, so we could press on with the test program just to de-load tomorrow a little bit.
“It’s a great feeling to drive a new car. I’m looking forward to getting into the season with it.”
Engineered by the ever-calm Alistair McVean, Stanaway has publicly voiced a desire to waste no time getting himself in title contention.
A full test tomorrow, alongside teammate Matt Payne, will be vital in his bid to hit the ground running later this month at Bathurst.
“I’m looking forward to having a reference tomorrow because you can only really put a stopwatch on the other cars today and we don’t really know where we are pace-wise,” said Stanaway.
“I’m looking forward to having Matt out on track tomorrow so we can have some data to work with.
“We have got a lot to work through.
“The engineers have been working really hard in the off-season just to try to optimise the grip of the car, with what they learnt last year, so we have got a lot that we need to run tomorrow and hopefully by tomorrow night we’re feeling good about the first round.”
BRT will also run a full two-car test tomorrow at Winton, backing up from a rookie day today for Aaron Love.
