JACK Le Brocq has confessed he was his own worst enemy as a potential podium slipped from his grasp yesterday at Albert Park.
The #9 Erebus Motorsport driver was clearly fast at stages during the 17-lap Race 2, but had to settle for eighth after a pair of setbacks.
The first saw him chewed up as Will Davison passed him for fifth at Turn 3, with eventual third-place finisher Matt Payne and Nick Percat following the #17 Mustang through.
The very next lap Le Brocq lost more ground after being run wide while trying to run around the outside of Cam Waters at Turn 13.
“It was disappointing, I just had a little slide into (Turn) 1 and that’s when Davo got us,” JLB told V8 Sleuth.
“I probably didn’t think he was as close as he was, so that was my mistake.
“And then the second time, it was a silly place to put the car on the outside there.
“There’s a few things for me to work on: I need to go away and do my homework and come back better.
“But to be honest, I’m pretty happy that I’m starting to get comfortable in the car and I think every race I do I’m going to get stronger and stronger. It’s starting to click.
“I still think I have got a long way to go to get the most out of this car because it’s very different, but it’s starting to click more and more with (engineers) Tom (Moore) and George (Commins) and the team. It’s great to have that sort of speed.
“We had the car to be on the podium today if I did the job.”
Le Brocq did play the team game nicely when he passed David Reynolds for eighth on Lap 10, helping teammate Todd Hazelwood also eek by.
“When you have got a teammate behind you, you always try to do what you can to help them out,” said the two-time race winner.
“I just put it back to first (gear) to sort of stop at the apex and just bank it up a bit.
“At least I got one pass done. I didn’t get the others done when I needed to, but we’ll take the positives away and hopefully we can move forwards towards that podium.”
Le Brocq also noted he’d taken onboard the pre-event challenge of team principal Brad Tremain to be less conservative and not worry about putting the car on the line.
“It’s probably one of those things: you never want to bend a car but it’s great to have the confidence in the team that they’re happy for us to go out there and have a 100 percent crack,” he added.
With Le Brocq and Hazelwood having recorded top 10 finishes in both races so far at Albert Park, Erebus has climbed to fifth in the teams’ championship.
A pair of Supercars qualifying sessions is first up today, from 9am AEDT.
