V8SDS: Optima Sport Bathurst Thursday notes

STRONG BATHURST START FOR OPTIMA SPORT

Optima Sport has made a solid start to its debut V8 Supercar event at Mount Panorama with David Clark setting the 13th fastest time during practice for round six of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series today.

With two practice sessions contested throughout the day Clark continually increased his confidence to creep up on the sometimes daunting 6.21km circuit and finish the day just outside the top ten.

"I raced here at Easter time during the Bathurst Festival in an Aussie Racing Car but to drive around here at full noise in a V8 Supercar is a completely different kettle of fish," said Clark.

"I think my times improved by over ten seconds from my first lap to my fastest one. Throughout day I worked on learning the track and its characteristics rather than trying to set an outright quick time.

"I'm comfortable with the knowledge that once we bolt a new set of tyres on tomorrow that my times will improve even further tomorrow."

Team owner David Macdougall was pleased with the speed shown by the Clark aboard the Optima Sport Falcon today.

"We took a gamble to only use older tyres for today's practice session and set ourselves the goal of finishing the day inside the top 50%," said Macdougall.

"At one stage we dropped to 23rd but David worked on putting a nice, clean, fast lap together and knocked out a 1.6 second improvement to finish the day 13th.

"Many people in front of us used new tyres but we've saved two sets of new tyres to use in tomorrow's qualifying session."

Qualifying and the opening 14-lap race will be contested tomorrow with the second and final race beginning at 1:45pm on Saturday.

-credit: os