After engine problems curtailed a strong performance at The Bend Motorsport Park, Shell V-Power Racing’s Anton De Pasquale was the dominant force when the Repco Supercars Championship returned at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Leading each practice and qualifying session, De Pasquale took two out of three race victories after a bad start in Race 21 turned into a disqualification due to a tyre mix up resulting in teammate Will Davison’s tyres being fitted to his Ford Mustang.
Davison himself was experiencing electronic problems, which dropped him out of the race lead during his pit stop.
However, Race 20 and 22 witnessed two commanding performances from the team’s new signee, crediting the crew’s work during the break as a key factor to his results.
“It was probably similar to The Bend earlier this year we were probably good for a couple of wins there until the motor dramas,” he reflected.
“The car was good, rolled out of the trick really strong. The guys did an awesome job during that break getting everything spot on and all niggling dramas, knocking those on the head.
“We put it altogether, rolled out with a really good car to sort of understand what we needed and all good, we had few good races.”
A poor start culminated with a disqualification in Race 21, blighting an otherwise superb weekend.
“Yeah, the race was a bummer,” De Pasquale said.
“I just had an average start. I don’t think it’s a big drama because you’re probably not going to be able to win three races just the way the tyres are, so if I was going to win that one, I was going to lose this one and vice versa.
“Not a big drama on that front, just learning things with the clutch and starting it’s been a bit of a break, so just perfecting that.
“About that exclusion, Benny (team principal Croke) told me and said ‘we made a mistake and this happening and go win the next race’, like what can you do? You can’t change things, obviously the team made an error, they knew straight away and they’re the ones that let Supercars know what happened.
“A simple mistake, not really an advantage just one of those things.
“We’ll rectify it and move on.”