TEKNO Preview: Phillip Island 360!
This weekend's round at Phillip Island - the penultimate of the 2013 V8 Supercars Championship Season - is a make or break one for TEKNO Autosports, and our drivers Jonathon Webb and Shane van Gisbergen. Both drivers are ready and raring to go after a good break following the Gold Coast 600. Jonathon headed to the United States and the big SEMA automotive trade show in Las Vegas, whilst SVG headed back to NZ for more racing - first in the Highlands 101 at Highlands Motorsport Park, before taking his first D1NZ podium last weekend. Both of our guys like Phillip Island, and both had a good run at the picturesque circuit in 2012. Shane finished second on Saturday and [...]
BIG CHANGES TO CLIPSAL 500 FORMAT!
PRESS RELEASE: After 15 years and with more than 3.5 million fans passing through the gate, race organisers of the Clipsal 500 Adelaide have announced the single biggest change in the race's history, in conjunction with another massive concert line-up featuring Grammy Award winning artist, Keith Urban. The concept of a 500 kilometre race remains as the core of the event; however, Saturday's fixture of racing will be conducted as two 125 kilometre races. The exciting new format also includes a totally new evening race schedule with the first of the 39 lap V8 Supercars events currently scheduled to start at 3.30pm and finish just before 5pm. The second V8 Supercar race for Saturday is scheduled to start at 6.30pm [...]
What a Difference a Day makes! Sunday at the GC600.
Motorsport is a cruel mistress, and TEKNO were taught a lesson by her today. After the highs of a podium and top-ten double yesterday, we sunk to a very low point with a DNF for Shane and Jeroen, and a hard fought, but disappointing 17th for Jonathon and Marc. The day started poorly for the team, with a lack of pace in qualifying hampering our efforts to improve on yesterday's result. Shane's best lap saw him start from 12th on the grid, whilst Jonathon battled a mysterious handling issue to start from p24. It's hard around the street of Surfers Paradise at the best of times, but even harder when you're running in the mid-pack and beyond. From the first [...]
Tired tyres the issue in QR Practice
Friday practice at Queensland Raceway saw two sessions for the majority of the field, with an additional session for endurance co-drivers. Both TEKNO cars were affected by the quality of their tyre bank, with Team TEKNO Darrell Lea's Jonathon Webb and Team TEKNO V.I.P. Petfoods' Shane van Gisbergen running around on old rubber, compromising their speed all day. In Practice one, Shane had issues with his steering, which saw him run only seven laps in the session, two seconds off the pace in p28. Jonathon Webb had a better session, despite his tyres, finishing p13 with a 1:10.8. Practice two saw limited running for both cars, with the tyres making it difficult to learn anything from the changes that were [...]
TEKNO are Round Winners in Darwin!
TEKNO Autosports had a fantastic weekend at Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin, with consistency across all three races rewarded with Jonathon Webb and Shane van Gisbergen earning first and second place for the round. The weather during a Darwin winter could not be described as anything short of perfection, with blue skies and temperatures in the low thirties for the entire weekend meaning rain would not trouble the field at any stage over the weekend. The V8 Supercars field headed to Darwin with a very small tyre allocation – 3 sets of hard tyres and two sets of softs – for the weekend, which meant tyre management was extremely important. This saw Friday practice become a bit of a mish-mash, [...]
Podium for TEKNO in Texas
The weekend's racing at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas brought high temperatures, clear skies and a fantastic podium for Team TEKNO V.I.P. Petfoods' Shane van Gisbergen in the final race of the weekend. Both van Gisbergen and Team TEKNO Darrell Lea stablemate, Jonathon Webb, had strong pace across the entire weekend at the Formula One facility in the Texan capital. The pace was clear from the opening of practice on Friday, with van Gisbergen topping the time sheets in session three, and being solidly in the top ten all day. Webb tuned the car across the day to end up fourth fastest in practice. The boys were upbeat following their speed in practice, with Jonathon was pretty [...]