CHAZ Mostert feared he wouldn’t even progress out of the opening stage of Darwin qualifying, such are the troubles his Walkinshaw Andretti United camp are experiencing.
Mostert slumped to his worst qualifying result in more than a year, managing just 17th on the grid for Race 1 this afternoon at Hidden Valley.
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After being slowest of all cars in Practice 2, the two-time Bathurst 1000 winner had next to no expectations coming into today.
“I can’t be too disheartened with 17th,” he told the Fox Sports broadcast, with teammate Nick Percat down in 26th.
“I felt like after the first run in quali we were probably a genuine 26th so we had a bit of a swing there between the first set of tyres and the second set of tyres so for us to get into Q2 actually felt like a big win.
“We were probably pretty optimistic to think that we could make it into Q3 but to be a tenth and a half off of Q3 and get a bit of a direction with where to go with the car, I’m upbeat and positive, I’m not feeling sad about it.
“Clearly practice and the first run in quali we have been well out of the window, so I felt something in the car that was putting us a bit closer to it.
“Now this race today, even though we’re not quite in the best position, we have got to be really aggressive with the car and still get a better direction for tomorrow.”
The #25 Mustang driver elaborated of the problem they’re facing: “I just feel like we’re not maximising the grip of the car.
“We’re having these little moments where you lose the rear into the corner and then you get the push so it’s not just one clear thing, I think it’s just overall about trying to maximise the grip coming into the car.
“We had no grip at the start of the session, I think I was seven flat (1:07.0) or something on a green tyre and then we went to a 1:06.39 so a big improvement but we’re a whole day and a bit behind where we probably want to be.”
Mostert was far from the only high-profile driver to qualify out of position, with Erebus Motorsport duo Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown both missing the top 10.