Tander's
Tassie hat-trick gives HSV Dealer Team round victory
Press Release
Holden Special Vehicles Dealer Team’s Garth Tander won three races out of three in the Ferodo Triple Challenge, giving him his first round victory since he won the Bathurst 1000 five years ago. The tall West Australia took the lead from Steven Richards in Race one on Saturday and was never headed for the remainder of the weekend, taking a maximum 192 points.
The icing on the cake for HSV DT was a third placing in the round to team-mate Rick Kelly who finished second in Race 3 in a 1-2 form finish with Tander.
It was HSV DT’s first round win since Greg Murphy won the Indy round last year.
Both drivers were high in their praise for the HSV DT pit crew, who gave both of them slingshot pit stops throughout the weekend to gain places on the short 2.4 km circuit near Launceston.
Team Manager Rob Crawford said the team prided itself on its pit stop ability and practised hard for such situations. “We owe it to the drivers to get them back in circulation as fast as possible,” he said. “The whole team did a fantastic job. Garth drove like a dog chasing a postman and Rick was right behind him. It doesn’t get much better.”
In the morning’s Race 2, Tander led from start to finish in another flawless driving performance.
Once again, his cause was helped by another lightning pit stop by the HSV DT crew as soon as the pit window opened, allowing him to rejoin the field ahead of second-placed Richards.
Kelly started from third place on the grid, but was out-gunned off the line by Marcos Ambrose into turn one. A great pit stop helped Kelly make up ground on Ambrose. However, late in the race as he striggled with the car's set up, Kelly was jumped by Craig Lowndes, pushing him back to fifth place.
But when the third-placed Ambrose had to pit to replace delaminated tyres, Kelly moved back up to fourth place for the checkered flag.
In Race 3, Tander again enjoyed a slick start, beating Richards into the first corner and opening up a handy break. In a repeat of the morning’s pit stop, Tander pitted immediately the window opened, received premium service from the crew and rejoined the race ahead of Richards.
The pressure was lifted a little later in the race when Richards was baulked by a car that spun on the Hairpin, causing him to spin also. This not only allowed Tander to gallop away to a handy lead but let Rick Kelly into second place for the final checkered flag. Kelly ended up missing out on second place for the round by just 2 points, but his bag of points moved him up to ninth place on the championship table, just 16 points behind Jason Bright.
Kelly and his #15 Commodore drove a flawless final race after his engineers reverted to the Race 1 set up after experimenting in Race 2. Starting the final race in fourth place, Kelly rounded up Craig Lowndes in the pit stop and then went after Richards, moving into second place when Richards spun trying to avoid Craig Baird’s Falcon.
Tander, Kelly and Richards all broke the race lap record during the final race, with Richards taking the final honours.
The HSV Dealer Team is looking to continue its great finish to the season at the next round at Phillip Island – the team’s test track.
#16 Garth Tander (Race 1 – 1st; Race 2- 1st; Race 3 – 1st. Round finish – 1st, 192 points. Championship – 7th, 1552 pts). : “Three wins from three starts – it doesn’t get much better than that. The car was fantastic all weekend and we didn’t change a thing all the way through – the car just got better and better as the track rubbered in. I have to thank the guys for doing a fantastic job all weekend. We missed pole by just 100th of a second and went on to win all three races, so we can’t ask for too much more than that. Richo and I had a really good race.
"Although it wasn’t always that close, if you had a bad lap two laps in a row, you would have a battle on your hands. We were both putting 120 per cent, and it was great. For us it was a matter of going hard early, building a little bit of a buffer and pitting early and fast to maintain the lead. It has been a long time between drinks, but it is great. The reason for switching to HSV Dealer Team this season was to win races, and since Darwin, we have been a consistent top five runner. Now, we are really looking forward to winning more, hopefully at Phillip Island in a couple of weeks.”
#15 Rick Kelly (Race 1 – 3rd; Race 2 – 4th; Race 3 – 2nd. Round finish – 3rd, 180 pts. Championship – 9th, 1454 pts.): “It is great to have both cars up the front again. We had a good first race, making up a couple of positions, but unfortunately in Race 2, we made a couple of changes that didn’t quite work out.
"We reverted to the Race 1 set up for the last race and went faster again. We came here wanting to finish the season strongly and to set ourselves for a big start to next season, and that’s how it turned out. We are really looking forward to Phillip Island – that’s our test track, so we should have a very good chance. We also test there this week, which should help too."