“I was a little bit disappointed with our speed today,” Whincup said, “We worked really hard and had a productive session, but didn't quite find the correct balance in the set-up. We are not concerned or panicking - it was a reasonable start for chassis 14 and we have a lot of information to scroll through tonight. I am more than confident we can make it faster tomorrow.”
The man who took over from Whincup at the head of the standings, Rick Kelly, was sixth fastest at Barbagallo, but reported that as well as trying to find the right handling characteristics for his HSV Dealer Team Commodore, he was also having to contend with a track surface that had deteriorated since the series' last visit.
“We had a lot of chat before the weekend about having a good base setup and when we rolled it out of the truck it wasn't quite where we thought it was," he revealed, "It took us half of the session to find where we needed to be and, by the time we got there, our rear tyre condition was much worse than everyone else. We went to our green tyres a little earlier than most other people and still put in a good time, so I think we can take a lot from that. We certainly learnt a lot from the runs we did on old tyres but, every year you come here, the track conditions are a little bit worse than the year before and, obviously, then requires a slightly different set-up.”
Tander's team-mate Mark Skaife - who had paced the second session - Lee Holdsworth and veteran Greg Murphy all took top ten spots, while Stone Brothers/Jeld-Wen driver James Courtney could manage only 14th in his brand new Falcon.
"The new car was running really well on old tyres, and all the changes we were making were in the right direction, so we made great progress quickly," Courtney revealed, "But, as soon as we put new tyres on, we lost all balance. We will have to have a good look into it tonight, but we are in pretty good shape. We have a great race car, just not the best qualifying car at the moment.”
