Max Vidau looked every bit an experienced driver as he ended Friday at Bathurst second fastest outright in a wet to dry practice two, after a top 10 in practice one, for his Dunlop Super2 Series debut.
Driving the #17 Anderson Motorsport Ford Mustang, Vidau emerged for an extra 10 minutes of practice at the beginning of practice one around what was at the time a dry Mount Panorama Circuit. The extra time, reserved purely for series rookies, ended with Vidau second fastest and quickest of any drivers making their debut in the Dunlop Series – the fastest driver having stepped up to Super2 after a season in Super3.
With the rest of the field joining the action, the 50-minute session was disrupted by several red flags which hampered the team’s run plan. Nevertheless, Vidau remained inside the top 10 for the entirety of the session, lowering his best time to a 2:08.7162s, just 1.193 seconds away from the quickest time – set by the defending Super2 Champion.
Heavy rain arrived prior to practice two, which saw the majority of the field spend much of the session in pit lane as the track slowly dried over the available 40-minutes. Vidau was one of the last drivers to venture onto the track, with a need to bed brakes in the Tyrepower Mustang.
Quick to make up for lost time, Vidau was released for one flying lap and soared to second place on the timesheets, settling amongst drivers to have completed closer to a dozen laps in the session. Once again Vidau was the fastest Dunlop Series debutant, setting his time on slick tyres on what was still a drying track.
By virtue of his time in practice one Vidau will be in group two for tomorrow’s two-part qualifying session, with the top half of the field split from the bottom half based on practice times.
Qualifying takes place at 9:25am before race one at 2:45pm AEDT. Both sessions will be live on Fox Sports and Kayo, with Channel 7 showing the race live and free.
Quotes:
Max Vidau – #17 Tyrepower Mustang
“It was good to get out in the first 10 minutes of practice one, and us rookies have the track to ourselves,” said Vidau.
“Not so much learning the track, but learning the car and how it handles around this place, where to make adjustments and the car placement. The red flags caused a bit of chaos for our run plan, but everyone was in the same boat so we can’t complain. We made a slight tweak with the setup for practice two but unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to have a good read on that with the rain.
“The problem early on was the track was half dry and half wet, so if you went out there you’d just burn off your tyres in five laps and have to throw them in the bin. So, we sat in the pits and then went out at the end to bed some brakes in. The boys let me go for one flyer at the end, which was good, and I’m sure we would have found even more time with some more laps.
“Good to be in the top half for qualifying, the track will be rubbered in a bit more after all the rain, and with all the experience in that session with us it should run pretty smoothly,” concluded Vidau.
