WHEN you get the nod to stay behind the wheel over a man who placed third in last year’s Bathurst 1000 and has been racing Supercars for 15 years, you know you’re doing a good job.
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On Sunday at the Winton Raceway, Bathurst’s Grant Denyer was the man doing that good job in round three of the Australian Production Car series.
Denyer is a team-mate of the vastly experienced Tony D’Alberto, a man who helped Fabian Coulthard to a Great Race podium last year.
But with the #10 Lotus locked in a tight battle in the second of two, two-hour races for the round on Sunday, it was Denyer instead of D’Alberto who guided the Simply Sports Cars entry to the chequered flag.
The time they saved by not doing a driver stop was critical in the success as they won by a tick under 37 seconds.
“My highly paid gun of a Supercar co-driver didn’t want to get in, the cheeky monkey, so I did the whole thing myself,” Denyer said.
“We thought there might have been a bit of an advantage, we had good pace and you lose 20 seconds in a driver change and Tony thought I was doing such a good job I should stay out there, I don’t know if I feel that way now.
“It was good, the Lotus was absolutely on rails, I was working hard to make sure I didn’t blow a tyre, they are fairly blistered now. It is a good feeling.”
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Having missed the opening round of the annual series, Denyer and D’Alberto made an impressive return at the Queensland Raceway.
It meant they were the pair to beat for the third round at Winton as they looked to climb from 11th outright in the championship battle.
And climb they did on Saturday as the pair claimed the chequered flag after an epic battle with another Lotus driven by Ryan Simpson and Jim Pollicina.
Denyer and D’Alberto ran second for much of the race, however inherited the lead when Simpson was penalised for a breach of restart procedure following the sole safety car period.
It handed them the lead on lap 58 as they went from trailing by 20 seconds to a five-second advantage.
With some 25 minutes still remaining, D’Alberto had to work hard to hold off Simpson, who was clocking lap records as he looked to regain the lead.
Simpson got close, but D’Alberto held on to win by just 0.2 seconds.
“They were counting me down how may minutes to go and how far behind, and I said you don’t have to tell me how far behind because I can see him,” D’Alberto said.
On Sunday Denyer was given the job of starting and from pole position, he took control. Over the first hour he opened up a lead of almost a minute over Pollicina.
But when Pollicina handed over to Simpson, Denyer’s advantage began to shrink. It led the team to make the tactical decision of leaving the Bathurst driver buckled in rather than handing over to D’Alberto when they pitted with 30 minutes to go.
The move paid off as Denyer held on take the win ahead of Simpson, who clocked the fastest lap of the race while in pursuit.
“I didn’t do much driving today, but Grant did a fantastic job and we are glad the strategy worked out,” D’Alberto said.
“It was beneficial to keep him in the car and he did everything required of him and probably a lot more.”
