V8SDS: Protecnica Racing Oran Park Friday notes

ALAJAJIAN IN FORM ON FRIDAY AT ORAN PARK

Round 4 of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series at Sydney's Oran Park Raceway started on a strong note for Protecnica Racing and Chris Alajajian today.

Contesting just their second round of V8 Supercar competition, the Sydneysiders shone during practice. In the opening 35-minute session, Alajajian steered the Jack Hillermans / Elf Lubricants Commodore to the second fastest time, with a lap of 1:11.3629 around the 2.62km circuit.

'The Chris' sat atop the timesheets for much of the session, before he was sidelined for the final ten minutes with a broken starter motor.

"It's a great way to start the weekend," Alajajian, 19, enthused ."We lost a little bit of track time late in the session, but aside from that it all went to plan.

"The car is the best it's ever been, and we've shown again that the performance is there. I know there is still some more time in my driving as I continue to learn, so it's all very encouraging.

"Obviously you don't get points for practice, but to finish a session in second place so early in our time in the series is a nice little reward for the team. They've done a great job as always."

For Practice 2, the team elected to make some setup changes. Remaining on old tyres, Alajajian again lapped competitively during the session, before settling for the 13th fastest time.

"We tried something different in setup for the session," he said. "With the changes and the tyres getting past their use by date, it didn't work and we went backwards a little bit.

"It was very much a 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' situation. We'll go back to the setup we had for Practice 1 but all in all it was a good day for us."

Underlining the promise of their Friday performance, Alajajian's time from the opening practice session was the fifth fastest lap of the day when times from the two sessions were combined.

"We know we have the pace, and have shown that today which is good," said Protecnica Racing team owner Scott Anderson. "We looked at the data between sessions and saw an avenue where we could find some more speed, so we made a couple of changes for the second session.

"In the end it didn't go our way, so we'll go back to the setup we had for the first session, put some new tyres on the car for qualifying tomorrow morning and go from there."

Round 4 of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series at Oran Park continues with qualifying tomorrow morning at 9:25am, before the first 16-lap race at 2:10pm. Races 2 and 3 will take place on Sunday.

-credit: pr