Lockwood Racing: Dumbfounded by sudden pace drop on today's Bathurst 1000

Things were looking good for Lockwood Racing halfway through today's Bathurst 1000, with Co-Driver Luke Youlden handing the car over in a strong top five position.

Fabian Coulthard, Brad Jones Racing

Photo by: Edge Photographics

After several stops to make adjustments Coulthard battled home to finish 16th. The team is now investigating what damage could have caused the sudden downturn in form.

V8 Supercars will be back in action at the Gold Coast in two weeks time.

Fabian Coulthard: "We lost a lot of time in that middle part of the race. We struggled for lap time. Luke was doing consistent 2:12.5s laps then I jumped in and struggled to do a 2:13.5! My engineer came onto the radio and said I needed to pick up the pace but I was doing all I could. Luke jumped back in and had a similar drama. I don't like saying it but may be there's something wrong with the car. It's unusual to drop off in pace like it did today.

"It was a funny kind of race with only two safety cars in 161 laps. More safety cars would have been nice. Then we might have been able to race with some people instead of drive around by ourselves.

"On the positive side, we finished 1000kms. Credit to the boys for building a reliable car. It's a long weekend to be here and everyone gives it their all. It would have been nice to get a better result for them."

Luke Youlden (Lockwood Racing Co-Driver): "In the first two stints of mine, the car felt unbelievable; really strong. I was holding pace with main game drivers and I thought we were in the hunt. We got up to fourth or fifth but then, when we did the driver change, we lost pace. When I jumped in again it was even worse! I'm a bit dumbfounded by how it transpired. The boys couldn't see anything obvious when we got the car back to the garage."

Lockwood Racing