SITTING 19th in the championship is not where Andre Heimgartner had hoped to be in his return Supercars season, but his position does come with a silver lining.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It means he can take bigger risks at Mount Panorama in pursuit of a coveted Bathurst 1000 victory.
At 23 years of age Heimgartner is one of the younger members of the 2018 Supercars grid, but the Auckland native does have more experience than that suggests.
He made his Bathurst 1000 debut in 2014 in the wildcard Super Black Racing entry – finishing a handy 11th – and went full-time in Supercars the following year.
He spent the next two seasons in the championship and though not having a full-time seat in 2017, did get another Bathurst start when replacing the injured Ash Walsh in the Brad Jones Racing Commodore.
READ MORE: Mayer’s hoping to engineer a Bathurst win
READ MORE: Kiwi mates are happy to unite for the 1000
Keep up to date with the latest sports news by clicking here
He ran ninth at Bathurst with Tim Slade then third at the Gold Coast. It was an effort which saw him signed up by Nissan Motorsport for 2018.
Though he’s only managed one top 10 finish for his new team this year, Heimgartner hopes to change that at Bathurst.
“We’ve got nothing to lose at the end of the day, so we’re definitely going to be giving it our all in all the stages of the race - qualifying, everything,” he said.
“We want to do the best as possible and a really good result at Bathurst would certainly be amazing for the campaign. You never know, you’ve got to be in it to win it.
“Our race pace in my car has been one of the strongest of the four cars in our team, so that’s been a positive. It’s obviously just about trying to qualify further up the front. If you don’t do that, you tend to get caught up in a bit more mischief down the back that you intend on.
“So we need to concentrate on our qualifying and let it all flow from there.”
Heimgartner has had his successes at the Mount, as last year he was crowned the Bathurst round winner in the Carrera Cup. That will help his cause this week.
“Any track you go well at you always take a bit more confidence from, it’s a track that you want to have a good history at. Having confidence at that track is obviously key with it being such a high commitment circuit,” he said.
