Jim Beam Racing Team Manager Malcolm Swetnam said the team was "despondent but not downhearted" after a frustrating day two of the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
The team went into today's practice sessions bouyed by yesterdays top 5 results, but from the outset it was apparent that the cars were not responding well to the increasingly dry track conditions.
In co-driver only practice session 5, Car #17's David Besnard finished P25 while #18's Matt Halliday finished P24. In the final practice session of the morning Steven Johnson was 23rd fastest and James Moffat, 26th.
Moffat achieved the team's best result for the day in this afternoon's qualifying and he and co-driver Matt Halliday will start P17 on the Grid for Sunday's Race, while Steven Johnson and David Besnard will have to make do with starting P25.
Post-qualifying, Swetnam was upfront about the team's misfortunes.
"The cars were great in the wet yesterday. We came here in the dry and the cars were not so great.
"We made changes overnight that we thought were the way to go but we think we may have been a little too conservative.
"we aren't running far away from where we were last year but the cars aren't as quick as they were last year. Having said that everyone seems to be a little off last years times."
Swetnam said the team were still searching for answers.
"Perhaps the rain washed the track clean and there's not enough rubber down, which could be the root cause of our problem," he said.
"If There's not enough rubber down it's possibly not generating enough grip.
"We're not sure that it's the case so we're doing a lot of number crunching now, going back through all the records.
"Both the cars are complaining of a similar lack of feel in the car and that's our priority at the moment; tring to generate some feel in the car before tomorrow morning.
"It's a different issue to Phillip Island but the end net result is a similar thing, which is lack of heat in the tyre creating a lack of feel in the car."
A disappointed Steven Johnson said he was trying to remain upbeat ahead of Sunday's race.
"You've got to keeep positive despite it being a terrible result," said Johnson.
"We'd thought we'd fixed the problem after Phillip Island but we came here and we're probably the worst we've been in the history of me coming here.
"It's obviously something that we need to work on but I really don't know what else to say about the day,"
Team mate James Moffat was also feeling frustrated despite the better qualifying position.
"It was a difficult day for both cars," said the rookie.
"Particularly in my case where we ran out of fuel in qualifying and spent the last ten minutes parked in the garage while the majority of the field was going quicker.
"But we'd made some progress in the car from practice to qualifying - which was encouraging - although we didn't get to fulfill our potential today.
"We've got a reasonable grid position, clearly not where we wanted to start from, but its a long day on Sunday so we'll see what happens.
The team went into today's practice sessions bouyed by yesterdays top 5 results, but from the outset it was apparent that the cars were not responding well to the increasingly dry track conditions.
In co-driver only practice session 5, Car #17's David Besnard finished P25 while #18's Matt Halliday finished P24. In the final practice session of the morning Steven Johnson was 23rd fastest and James Moffat, 26th.
Moffat achieved the team's best result for the day in this afternoon's qualifying and he and co-driver Matt Halliday will start P17 on the Grid for Sunday's Race, while Steven Johnson and David Besnard will have to make do with starting P25.
Post-qualifying, Swetnam was upfront about the team's misfortunes.
"The cars were great in the wet yesterday. We came here in the dry and the cars were not so great.
"We made changes overnight that we thought were the way to go but we think we may have been a little too conservative.
"we aren't running far away from where we were last year but the cars aren't as quick as they were last year. Having said that everyone seems to be a little off last years times."
Swetnam said the team were still searching for answers.
"Perhaps the rain washed the track clean and there's not enough rubber down, which could be the root cause of our problem," he said.
"If There's not enough rubber down it's possibly not generating enough grip.
"We're not sure that it's the case so we're doing a lot of number crunching now, going back through all the records.
"Both the cars are complaining of a similar lack of feel in the car and that's our priority at the moment; tring to generate some feel in the car before tomorrow morning.
"It's a different issue to Phillip Island but the end net result is a similar thing, which is lack of heat in the tyre creating a lack of feel in the car."
A disappointed Steven Johnson said he was trying to remain upbeat ahead of Sunday's race.
"You've got to keeep positive despite it being a terrible result," said Johnson.
"We'd thought we'd fixed the problem after Phillip Island but we came here and we're probably the worst we've been in the history of me coming here.
"It's obviously something that we need to work on but I really don't know what else to say about the day,"
Team mate James Moffat was also feeling frustrated despite the better qualifying position.
"It was a difficult day for both cars," said the rookie.
"Particularly in my case where we ran out of fuel in qualifying and spent the last ten minutes parked in the garage while the majority of the field was going quicker.
"But we'd made some progress in the car from practice to qualifying - which was encouraging - although we didn't get to fulfill our potential today.
"We've got a reasonable grid position, clearly not where we wanted to start from, but its a long day on Sunday so we'll see what happens.