Team 18 drivers Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds hit the track at Symmons Plains Raceway today for practice ahead of this weekend’s Tasmania Super440.

Reynolds opened the day with an impressive second place in Practice 1 in the TRADIE Energy Chevrolet, but dropped to 14th in the second session after a major setup change didn’t deliver the desired improvements. Despite the mixed results, Reynolds remains optimistic after his best practice start of the season and is aiming to fine-tune the setup overnight.

De Pasquale posted the 13th fastest time in Practice 1 and improved to 10th in Practice 2 aboard the DEWALT Racing Chevrolet. De Pasquale said the team made solid progress across both sessions, showing stronger pace in race trim and believes they are only a small change away from unlocking competitive qualifying speed.

Team 18 are back on track tomorrow for Qualifying and Races 11 and 12 of the championship. Qualifying begins at 9:05am for Race 11 and 9:55am for Race 12. Race 11 kicks off from 12:05pm, with Race 12 at 3:55pm, both over 50 laps.

Fans can catch all the action live on Fox Sports and Kayo. Check local guides for broadcast times.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Anton De Pasquale, driver #18 DEWALT Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 13th

Practice 2: 10th

“ Day one in Tasmania, couple practice sessions for us today.

“I think we learned some stuff, we did some race running and some qualy runs. The car is a little bit stronger I think in the race spec than the qualy spec, but it’s so close that we’re only one or two changes away from being right in there.”

David Reynolds, driver #20 TRADIE Energy Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Practice 1: 2nd

Practice 2: 14th

“We rolled out pretty well today. I was the fastest straight away, but I’m generally quite good at this place. I’ve got in a good rhythm, I know what to do, there’s only three corners. It’s pretty easy for me to maximise what I got.  After that, we took a backward step and I felt like the tyres weren’t hanging on like they were last year.

“The track’s quite different than it was last year. We tried a few small changes and didn’t have a lot of inroads, and then Practice 2, we tried a big swing at the car and didn’t get a lot of benefit out of it. It didn’t really change the balance at all really, which is really surprising and it’s quite alarming and confusing to be honest. The problem is the change took too long to put in and then you can’t unwind to go back to your base car, so we had to run a set of greens and we were 14th in the end.”

“My lap today wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t the best, but hopefully we can really think about what we’re going to do tomorrow, but I think it’s a much more positive start than I’ve had every other race this year, but still a little bit confused in one area.”