TEAM 18’s new hierarchy has been dealt its first hiccup after a weekend to forget in New Zealand.
Reinvigorated under the watch of team principal Adrian Burgess and technical director Geoff Slater, Team 18 thrived at Bathurst and Albert Park – but the Taupō Super400 proved a struggle for both Mark Winterbottom and David Reynolds.
Winterbottom was 11th and 17th in the twin 60-lap contests while Reynolds was just 16th and 24th – the latter result affected by steering woes.
“We’ve done a terrible job,” Burgess confessed on the post-race broadcast.
“I think the first two events we made some solid progress; this weekend we just struggled all weekend on the new surface. Old surface we seemed to be quite good, the car was balanced and it struggled on the new.
“And then today we had a bit of a power steering problem with Davey.
“He was stuck in traffic so we elected to put him on a three-stopper and get him some clean air but that didn’t help us either. The temperatures came down but we still had steering problems all day.
“Hopefully this is the worst weekend of the year and we’ll punch on for the next one.”
The Charlie Schwerkolt-owned squad has dropped from third to sixth in the teams’ championship.
Wanneroo Raceway in the west hosts Round 4 action next month.
