Double Victory Sends Mozzie to Sandown!
G’day guys,
I can’t believe it: two wins to start the finals. The car was mega all weekend. It’s been such an inconsistent year, but we put our best car forward and the crew did an amazing job. We’ve found our form at the right time.
On Saturday the car was spectacular on the supersoft. It definitely never felt easy, but as the tyre got a bit of deg, my balance really came good and I was just able to truck on.
Did I expect starting fourth that I’d win? No. But credit to the team, they gave me an amazing car. I was quick where I needed to be.
Kudos to the guys and girls that came up with a strategy to do nearly 50 laps on a tyre. I know I was the one standing in first place, but they’re the heroes of the day, and the win is for all their hard work. That’s a long, hard yakka around here.
I still can’t quite believe it, to be honest. The soft tyre was probably the biggest unknown for us coming into Sunday. We qualified really well, up in third, and with the pressure off, I just wanted to settle into a groove.
But always when there’s a race win on the line you’ve got to push yourself and dig, and today the team dug extremely deep and put me out in front with clear air, and we were able to hold on. It was super tight in the end with Broc. He was super fast. No doubt he had the pace to deserve victory today.
Our car just wasn’t quite as good on the soft, but you just need some luck sometimes. But it wasn’t just luck. Sunday’s performance was all the team. We started on the second row, and we know how critical it is to give it your all. It’s a team sport, so this win is the team’s today. They were perfect in the pit stops, they held their nerve under pressure. I wouldn’t be in victory lane without them.
We still need to find a little bit more pace on the soft tyre, but overall I’m just super ecstatic to get to the next round. This definitely makes up for the disappointment of Bathurst, that’s for sure.
We’ve spoken all year about finals series and winning races, and I just took all that noise out and just wanted to use the fast race car that we had.
When you don’t have a win for so long you start to question yourself, you start to question your feedback, you start to question how you start to set the car up around yourself, so when you have a win like this… I felt like I was 110 kilos coming into the race and I just feel like I’m about 50 kilos right now. I feel so mellow. It’s kind of weird to explain.
On the other side, I’m really gutted too for Ryan [Wood], because he’s been stellar all year, and for him to be knocked out and go to Sandown with nothing and through no fault of his own is really gut wrenching. We’ve got to do him justice now. We need to try and win this championship for him.
I’ll do everything I can in Sandown and Adelaide. Overall I’m pretty pumped just to get two surfboards this weekend.
We’ve got a little bit of work to do, and Sandown is a totally different track, but we should be fast there.
See you then!
Chaz