PERTHVILLE’S Grant Denyer is hopeful a revised Phillip Island format will bring him better fortune in the 2019 Australian Production Car Series.
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Australian Production Car Series management have altered the format to allow more track time at the Phillip Island event, which will now see competitors race two 300 kilometre races over June 28-30 instead of the one six-hour race meeting seen this year.
Denyer and teammate Tony D’Alberto headed into last month’s final round of the season at Phillip Island in the championship lead, however six tyre blowouts across the six-hour race left them in third position.
Despite the tyre failures, Denyer says that he isn’t too worried about the change in format, and is excited to get back racing.
“It doesn’t really worry me. I generally enjoy the longer races and I think the format change will help the other competitors,” Denyer said.
“We blew six tyres in the six hours of the event this year, and it is still a mystery to us why our car was so hard on its tyres. The lesser distance could alleviate the pressure on the tyres.”
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Both Denyer and D’Alberto found themselves in championship contention heading into the final round, which was impressive considering they had missed round one due to a heavy crash and were still coming to grips with their Lotus machinery.
“All season we were coming to terms on how to make the Lotus work, tinkering the set-up and fine-tuning our driving. We won four races in a row and I never imagined we would be in contention for the championship. I have just really enjoyed racing and this year overall,” Denyer said.
“It was great to get some race wins, to just get the racing buzz back again. It was awesome to just be having some fun but be at the pointy end, setting fastest laps and all that. It was just awesome.”
Australian Production Cars category manager Iain Sherrin said he is excited for the change.
“When the opportunity to increase our track time from three one-hour races to two 300 kilometre races became a reality and at a time which suits our calendar and our competitors, we simply could not say no,” Sherrin said.