Dimitri Agathos and Lachlan Gibbons are happy to fly under the radar at this weekend’s fourth round of the Australian Production Car Series, the Sydney Motorsport Park Four Hour.
Agathos and Gibbons scored their season-best results in the previous round of the series at Winton, where they achieved a pair of top-six finishes thanks to steady performances across the two races in the Nova Employment/Castrol/Whiteline/All Drive Subaroo/Hog’s Breath Café North Parramatta Subaru WRX STI.
With the single four-hour race format for this weekend, both drivers are expecting strategy to be key.
“We’re coming into this round as underdogs, but we’re comfortable with that,” Agathos said.
“We know we don’t quite have the raw pace of some of the other cars, but we know we have a car that’s easy to drive, and capable of punching out consistent times over long stints.
“The key will be timing our pit stops to take into account both fuel range and maximum driving times, to ensure we don’t get trapped into making more stops than we need.”
In previous production car endurance races, Sydney Motorsport Park has a history of producing high tyre degradation; Gibbons believes the Subaru will be more economical in its use of tyres than some other cars.
“SMP has some high-speed, constant-radius corners that put a lot of load through the tyres, especially the front-right, which is heavily punished through Turn 1,” Gibbons said.
“The Subaru has been fairly kind to its tyres; we’ll be monitoring degradation closely throughout practice and qualifying, which will shape our strategy for the race. If we can save some time in the race by not having to change tyres at every stop, it could work to our advantage compared to some of the other cars that will use their tyres more aggressively.”
Australian Production Cars Round 4 Schedule
Saturday, 22 September
8:55am – Practice (30 min)
1:33pm – Qualifying 1 (15 min)
1:53pm – Qualifying 2 (15 min)
Sunday, 23 September
10:49am – Warm-up (10 min)
1:26pm – Race (240 min)
