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Luke King’s return to testing ticks all the boxes
Melbourne Performance Centre driver Luke King returned behind the wheel of his Moutai Audi RS3 LMS TCR for the first time since May at Phillip Island last Friday.
King, who is second behind teammate Chaz Mostert in the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia standings was pleased with how the day played out as he not only gained valuable miles before the TCR Bathurst 400, but made set-up tweaks in preparation for the season finale.
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“There were some things we wanted to tick off the list from earlier in the year,” King said.
“Although it was a shakedown for me, I also wanted to get the most out of the day.
“We took the morning part of the day pretty casually and just made sure everyone was happy with where the car was at and I was sort of up to speed.”
Drawing from his experience at Symmons Plains for Round 1 where he qualified well after a long lay off from driving, King was able to get up to speed and provide a solid base for Bathurst at the end of this month.
“I was actually pretty happy with how I drove considering I haven’t driven anything for so long,” he reflected. “Before the test I reflected back on the start of the year in Tassie and it had been more than 12 months since I’d driven anything in anger.
“We went to Tassie and I was fine, we were straight on the pace with Chaz so I used that as a confidence booster going into the test just to try and get us up to speed quicker.”
Returning to Phillip Island where he achieved a breakout result battling Mostert in an epic Race 2 encounter, King is prepared for the next challenge at the Mountain.
“Phillip Island is one of those tracks where you need a lot of commitment with all the high speed corners, it’s a challenging circuit,” King described.
“It was the perfect test for us to get ready for Bathurst to get used to the high speed again and making sure I feel confident in the car.
“As long as we can go to Bathurst with some confidence and pull some good results, I think we’ll be all feeling pretty good about it.”