News
Tasmania no form guide for Josh Buchan
HMO Customer Racing’s Josh Buchan has labelled his struggles at AWC Race Tasmania an anomaly and is targeting a return to form at Phillip Island in the still new Hyundai Elantra N (i30 N Sedan) TCR.
A successful test recently at Sydney Motorsport Park left Buchan and the team buoyant after discovering an electrical problem, which has plagued the squad since receiving the new model prior to last year’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst International.
“We found an issue at Tasmania that had been hampering us all through testing and even back to Bathurst, so considering that we were quite amazed at how well we went there,” Buchan explained.
“We’ve found the issue, identified it, it is something that creeps in now and then. It’s an electronic part that seems to be a little bit temperamental and we have to just make sure to do as much to mitigate it.”
Apart from this, Buchan is pleased with the potential already displayed by the new Hyundai as he targets improved qualifying performances. This was part of the focus of the test at Sydney Motorsport Park.
“The car is in a pretty good spot in terms of its race pace,” he said.
“Ironically, my best session was qualifying even though we had the boost issue, but that was genuine pace. We looked at our logs and everything, but we didn’t really gain a huge amount in qualifying.
“Considering that, we went Sydney Motorsport Park – a circuit which has been good to me – and it was as we probably expected. The Hyundai probably didn’t wake up as much on the new tyre as we’d like, but it’s really the second or third time we’ve thrown a brand new set of tyres on that car, which were Kumhos. The new tyres do behave very differently to the previous product we were using.
“The main thing that we’re trying to focus is to unlock a bit of single lap pace out of it for the moment, we’re happy with the race and longer runs in terms of how it looks after everything.
“We’re just looking for a bit of extra speed on the new tyre.”
Attention now turns to Phillip Island where Buchan hasn’t enjoyed much luck in his previous two visits there, a trend he is aiming to change.
“I don’t really look at Tasmania as a form guide and I don’t think the team does either,” Buchan said.
“Phillip Island we try again, play on and see if we can have a bit more rub of the green then the first round.”
The next round of the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series will be at Phillip Island as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries on May 12-14.