BLANCHARD Racing Team youngster Aaron Love will tomorrow take an important step in his mission to move on from a horror Repco Supercars Championship debut.
Love crashed thrice across his first two solo main game races, condemning him to a measly 39 points taken away from the Thrifty Bathurst 500.
The 21-year-old last season showed himself to be super-fast if a tad erratic, and BRT has openly acknowledged that the early stages of his graduation could be something of a rollercoaster.
Immensely apologetic for his series of Round 1 mistakes, it should not be understated that Love did outqualify champion teammate James Courtney for Race 2 at the Mountain before again being guilty of trying too hard in race trim.
“It was probably trying too hard to get a good result, not trying too hard to be too fast, if you know what I mean,” Love told V8 Sleuth.
“I was probably focusing too much on not making a mistake so then you kind of think about it too much and it turns into a mistake.
“It’s definitely not the ideal round everyone wants, especially for your first one, but it’s been and it’s happened now so it’s learning from it, resetting and just moving on forward to the round in a couple of weeks’ time.”
The #3 CoolDrive Mustang pilot will get back on the horse tomorrow, courtesy of a rookie test at The Bend Motorsport Park – handily placed less than a fortnight before racing at another high-speed venue in Albert Park.
“Tailem Bend is probably one of the best tracks you can do some testing at in Australia,” said Love.
“It’s very high-speed in most areas so there will definitely be a lot of stuff that we can work through coming out of Bathurst and heading into the Grand Prix.
“All three are probably quite similar tracks in a way, so really looking forward to going and doing some good miles there tomorrow.
“It’s obviously a good benefit for us that I’ve got a rookie test up our sleeve and we can go to places like Tailem Bend and test, because obviously at Winton you can kind of get carried away a little bit with what the track has got to offer and things like that, and obviously it’s a very small, tight track.
“So to be able to escape the nature of Winton is pretty positive for us to then be able to go and try new things that you probably can’t even try to do much research on at tracks like Winton.”
Albert Park has been a happy hunting ground before for Love, who won three Carrera Cup races at the 2022 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix event.
Courtney will also be at The Bend and is allowed to turn up to 10 laps in Love’s car; Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Ryan Wood is another to be completing a rookie test tomorrow at the South Australian circuit.
