Jim Beam Racing's Steven Johnson and James Moffat are confident after solid practice sessions on day one of the ITM400 Hamilton in New Zealand.
An upbeat Johnson said he was pleased with how the #17 Falcon performed.
“The car was good in P1 and P2 on the hard tyre,” said Johnson.
“But we made a couple of changes between P2 and P3 which took some time to bed in.
“In P4 the car was good, although we didn’t really get a decent time in. At that stage other guys were throwing fresh rubber on but we didn’t use any new tyres.
“It had started raining,” explained Johnson.
“On top of that there were a few red flags and we didn’t want to risk the car when it was drizzling.
“A few guys definitely did go quicker at the end but we decided to save the rubber for tomorrow.
“When you even it out and take away the new tyre advantage we were certainly up there
“We just need to keep our fingers crossed that we have the grip and the car speed when we go into qualifying tomorrow.”
Rookie James Moffat was also pleased after his debut outing on the Hamilton street circuit.
“It was a pretty good day considering this is my first time here,” said Moffat.
“The time I did in the first session I was pretty happy with and to be up there with Steve [Johnson] was good.
“Then we ran the softs at the end of the second session and we were second.
“After that we just went through a bit of a planned session on the one set of softs just to see how they would last over a race distance.
“We got through a bit of set-up stuff in sessions three and four.
“At the end of P4 our intention was to try another set of softs, just to see where we were.
“But the drizzle put paid to that and we had to settle with where we were.
“The time I did in practice two would have put me about thirteenth for the day and I’m pretty happy with that.
“And I think with new softs we would have improved on that again.
“The car is probably the best it’s been all year so and I think we are definitely heading in the right direction.”
Steven Johnson Practice Session Results:
P1: P2
P2: P8
P3: P7
P4
19
James Moffat Practice Session Results:
P1: P4
P2: P2
P3: P21
P423
An upbeat Johnson said he was pleased with how the #17 Falcon performed.
“The car was good in P1 and P2 on the hard tyre,” said Johnson.
“But we made a couple of changes between P2 and P3 which took some time to bed in.
“In P4 the car was good, although we didn’t really get a decent time in. At that stage other guys were throwing fresh rubber on but we didn’t use any new tyres.
“It had started raining,” explained Johnson.
“On top of that there were a few red flags and we didn’t want to risk the car when it was drizzling.
“A few guys definitely did go quicker at the end but we decided to save the rubber for tomorrow.
“When you even it out and take away the new tyre advantage we were certainly up there
“We just need to keep our fingers crossed that we have the grip and the car speed when we go into qualifying tomorrow.”
Rookie James Moffat was also pleased after his debut outing on the Hamilton street circuit.
“It was a pretty good day considering this is my first time here,” said Moffat.
“The time I did in the first session I was pretty happy with and to be up there with Steve [Johnson] was good.
“Then we ran the softs at the end of the second session and we were second.
“After that we just went through a bit of a planned session on the one set of softs just to see how they would last over a race distance.
“We got through a bit of set-up stuff in sessions three and four.
“At the end of P4 our intention was to try another set of softs, just to see where we were.
“But the drizzle put paid to that and we had to settle with where we were.
“The time I did in practice two would have put me about thirteenth for the day and I’m pretty happy with that.
“And I think with new softs we would have improved on that again.
“The car is probably the best it’s been all year so and I think we are definitely heading in the right direction.”
Steven Johnson Practice Session Results:
P1: P2
P2: P8
P3: P7
P4
19James Moffat Practice Session Results:
P1: P4
P2: P2
P3: P21
P4
23