ARMOR ALL BATHURST 12 HOUR - EVENT QUOTEBOARD

ARMOR ALL BATHURST 12 HOUR - EVENT QUOTEBOARD  

Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMS (1st)

Christer Joens: I actually can’t really believe it right now. The race was great. I had a good third and fourth stint. I had good fun with Craig Lowndes and the Mercedes,  but it was very difficult. I was getting off the pace a little bit, but I got on again.  My two teammates did a great job also for Team Phoenix Racing, I am really happy. This is my first Audi win; it is a great start to the new year.”

Darryl O’Young: “Christopher Meis drove the first part of the race as he has the most experience in the wet, but then it never really stopped raining. It was really tough in the middle stint; we were doing 0.46s and 0.47s because there was so much water on the circuit. That was when our sister car in the other Audi went off, there was just so much water there, it was almost impossible. That was the hardest part of the race for me.”

Christopher Meis: “At the beginning, the first two or three laps (I thought we could win) but then the Ferrari caught me and I wondered what the hell was going on. Allan Simonsen was almost two seconds faster but I was able to hold onto position two all of the time. I did four and a half hours in the first six hours so I did my whole stint at the start. We were the fastest car on track, until my mistake, we spun. I think the brake disc, because of the water, was too cold. The rear wheel was locked and I spun. I hit the wall also but we had no damage, so I could continue. It wasn’t as easy as it looked with the Mercedes and at the beginning, two Ferrari’s both were pushing a lot from behind, so it wasn’t easy for us. In the end, it was quite amazing for us, especially for Daryl and me, also for Christer, he did a great job. We know the rain from Germany, then I come to Australia and it’s always raining, but now I know the track and I know I could go fast.”

Erebus Racing Mercedes Benz SLS GT3 (3rd)

Jeroen Bleekemolen: “It was a great race, it was very close. The car in the dry conditions wasn’t fast enough, we were missing a little bit of straight line speed and torque out of the corners. Generally it was doing a great job and everything was running really well. It is a shame we came so close and didn’t win it. It gives us a good reason to come back. Those Audi boys should buy a lot of beer for the guys at that last corner because not losing a lap and going off is really lucky. They did a great job, their car was very good, and the drivers did a very good job. Unfortunately we were a little bit short but I think we can be happy with the job we have done. Great drive from all of the drivers, no mistakes which is the best thing we can do.”

Tim Slade: “We better start for the Aussies with a G’Day.”

“The start was something new for me, I don’t think I have ever driven a race car in the dark under lights. Fortunately for me we didn’t have anyone with their head lights blazing away in the mirror. Like Jeroen said, we struggled for outright pace in the dry conditions. I have said it a million times today; our strength is our fuel economy. When you aren’t as fast in a straight line, you are not using as much fuel. We looked after the tyres. Towards the end of the dry stints we weren’t too bad; the car was reasonably good in the wet. I did the double in the morning and in the afternoon jumped in for another double in the wet. It was awesome fun to drive, especially in the wet. It was a big difference from what I normally drive, I would like to do some more.”

Brett Curtis: “I am from Southern California, we don’t have a whole lot of rain there. It was a great challenge; the Mountain surely can bite as I found out in practice. I was really happy with what our team and Black Falcon put together. It was a great car, I think the car was capable of everything prior to the contact that we had. The guys did a really good jobl; we were waiting for the opportune moment to put me in the car. These guys have good pace and I was doing my best to work my way towards that. Without having a lot of practice here it was difficult to catch up. We were waiting but we finally threw me in the car and that was when there was a downpour. It was cloudy and foggy on top. It was really fun and really challenging. I enjoyed being out there with a lot of top pros from around the world. I had a great time; I hope I get more opportunities to come back here.”

Brett Curtis: (On comparison compare to Daytona) “I tell you this is a mountain of a challenge; there is nothing more you can say. It’s tremendously difficult. You have a lot of entries in Daytona and a lot of drivers from around the world. In the end we had three really strong teams running lap for lap, pit strategy and lots of team support. I would say that this is a tremendous challenge that I would like to come back and do again.”

Hackett: “To be honest, this is a fantastic effort for a really new team. A really, really new team.  Those of you who aren’t familiar with Australian GT’s, we are really new. We did a handful of races last year and had some success early on. We came in here quietly confident. The link with Black Falcon was a natural one;  their history in endurance racing speaks for itself; the driver line up and winning the Dubai 24 Hour just a few weeks ago. It was a really honour to have them. As two separate teams, Erebus and Black Falcon, we turned up as friends and we are going to leave this weekend as a proper team.”

Clearwater Racing Ferrari 458 Italia (3rd)

Craig Baird: “The goal was a podium, I think the team did a great job in tough conditions with two guys who haven’t been here before. There are guys in ever team going out with limited mileage. Matt Griffin did a fantastic job to go out and within 4 laps top a time sheet. That shows the class of the field. These guys here, there are some class acts in the field, not only as drivers, but as teams.”

Mok Weng Sung: (the team manager) “...Is putting together a trophy of 50kgs of ballast plates. It has been an awesome experience. I was seriously scared to drive that last stint but these guys were up against 5 hours so I had no choice but to go out. We have rain back home but we definitely don’t have mountains like this. I definitely want to come back next year. We had low expectations first time around but we have a team cobbled together, my regular team from Asia, with Italians boys and Australia crew so you can imagine communications in the pits. Really, really good.”

Matt Griffin: “Just to touch on the communication, having a Paddy in the car probably didn’t help the situation, when I am screaming at the top of my voice at a 45 degree angle on the steering half way down Conrod Straight. It has got to rank as one of the toughest races I have ever done. When the rain was heavy, you couldn’t really see where you were going.  It isn’t really an issue if all of the cars are the same speed, following one of those cars is fine, you just look at the edge to see where to go, and then a slower class BMW appears just ‘there’ and your closing speed is 50mph. It was really tough but you have to hand it to the team. We had a couple of setbacks early on, beared on to get a fantastic result. The pressure was on Weng in the last stint, with no mistakes we had third in the bag and he went out and did a faultless job. I am over the moon, it is a fantastic result for us.”

Racer Industries HSV Astra VXR (Production Winner)

Chris Pither: “We looked at our performance in practice and thought tenth was possible. We could recognise a couple strength with our fuel economy and our tyre wear, making the most of them. I only got the chance to do this a week and a half ago. It was a great opportunity to sit alongside them all. It is a tribute to the team effort and strategy that got us here in the end.”

Elliot Barbour: “That is the reason why we turned up, me and Scotty, to get the opportunity to drive Bathurst (before their rides in the Development Series). We did probably 4 or 5 laps each Friday and Saturday so we didn’t do much before the race today. My first stint was in the rain after about two laps. I was pretty scared at that stage, I don’t love front wheel drives in the rain. We managed to stay there and the other boys did a great job. Definitely the toughest track I have been too. As the fastest guys said, we are slow and they come up on us pretty fast so trying to watch your mirrors for the 12 hours is a hard job but they gave us plenty of room and respect so it was a great race.”

Scott Pye:  “We went to some cool circuits overseas last year, but I definitely have a new favourite here at Bathurst. It was interesting out there, there weren’t too many times the Audi’s and Merc’s held us up.”

“I think we are pretty happy, we have beaten our expectations. We are the smallest team in pit lane I think; our goal was to be the top production car and we achieved that. Hopefully we all go on to bigger and better things. We have to thank Ryan McLeod and Racer Industries for making it happen. Hopefully we can come back here one day in a top car and fight for an outright position.”


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