De Pasquale scores Friday podium at Townsville

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Team 18 has made an impressive start to the NTI Townsville 500, with DEWALT Racing’s Anton De Pasquale scoring his second podium in as many rounds, finishing third in Race 20 on Friday afternoon.

After qualifying fifth, De Pasquale jumped past Matt Payne on the opening lap and wasted no time closing in on the front-runners. A bold move on Will Davison at Turn 11 on Lap 7 saw him climb to third, where he remained after his compulsory stop on Lap 24, chasing down leaders Brodie Kostecki and Cam Waters to the chequered flag.

De Pasquale praised the team for rolling the car out fast from the outset, allowing them to fine-tune throughout the day and deliver a podium finish to kick off the weekend on a high.

On the other side of the garage, TRADIE Energy Racing’s David Reynolds endured a challenging race after being hit from behind on the opening lap and pushed into the car ahead. Despite sustaining front-end damage and struggling with balance, he pushed on to recover to 20th.

Reynolds noted the improved car stability over last year and believes a cleaner run in Saturday’s qualifying could see him move forward for the rest of the weekend, especially after battling illness in the lead-up to Friday’s action.

Saturday’s program features qualifying at 10:00am, followed by the Top 10 Shootout at 12:05pm, and Race 21 over 70 laps starting at 3:00pm. Fans can catch all the action live on Channel 7, Fox Sports and Kayo.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Anton De Pasquale, #18 DEWALT Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: P3
Practice 2: P6
Qualifying: P5
Race 20: P3

“ First day here in Townsville. Busy day, practice, qualifying and a race. Car rolled out of the truck really good, which is something which drivers always want, but I think it was one of the better ones for the year for that.

“So we just fine tuned it all day and got a podium at the end.

“That was the plan all along obviously, but rolling out of the truck good and executing this day was high on our priority list.

“I’m proud of everyone. It was an awesome day and see what the rest of the weekend brings.”

David Reynolds, #20 TRADIE Energy Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: P15
Practice 2: P8
Qualifying: P17
Race 20: P20

“Today was going to be a very challenging day for myself. Being really crook in the lead up and I knew it was going to be a tough day, but at the end of the day, it shouldn’t affect your result too much.

“We started off practice and ended up in eighth and made some good changes with the car. Last year we came here we had a lot of problems with rear locking and instability and the car seems to be a lot better this year with that.

“Ended up 17th in Qualifying, but if I did my lap better, I should’ve been 12th or 13th. I left a little bit out there.

“In the race I got an ok start and then 200 metres into the race I got centre punched by another driver, which made me centre punch another guy in front and that kind of stuffed the front and rear of my car which made it a bit difficult after that.

“We rolled around 20th, so it’s not the most exciting day out there.

“Normally if you’re that sick going into a race, you have practice just to reset your day, reset your weekend, where this is the first time that we’ve actually had a Friday race and qualifying here, so you have that added pressure straight up and I’ve literally been in bed for the last four days, so I knew it was going be tough, but hopefully it gets easier from now on.”