SIGNS OF SPEED UNDONE BY CIRCUMSTANCE IN DARWIN
Cooper Murray ended a tough Darwin weekend on a positive note, recovering 10 places and setting one of Sunday’s fastest laps, to set himself up for Townsville.
Cooper’s Saturday started with difficulty, qualifying 22nd in the tough Darwin conditions, but he kept himself out of the early carnage to rise to 17th at the second safety car restart, which he held to the flag.
The day’s second qualifying session was far more representative, with Cooper taking ninth on the grid, which he turned into eighth off the line. A clean stop on lap 19 should have had him on track for a top-10 finish and big points, but his race came undone shortly afterwards when David Reynolds tipped him into a spin with 14 laps to go, leaving him scrambling back to 18th.
Cooper’s Sunday got off to another tough start, with qualifying leaving him 23rd in the order, but the rookie put in a blistering drive to rise 10 places, up to 13th, by the flag. His race was made by two long first stints — ending on laps 30 and 55 respectively — that helped him make the most of his raw pace and left him 18th for his final blast. With fresh rubber Cooper made strong progress up to 13th. He set the fourth-fastest lap of the day, a time beaten only by those who pitted several laps later than him.
“We managed to stay out of trouble in the first race and make up four positions, which was good damage limitation considering our starting position. For the second race I was just in the 10, and we were running quite comfortably inside the top 10 before an unfortunate turn of events — getting turned around by Dave Reynolds ended our race, and we came away 18th.
“Sunday’s race was an interesting one. We missed the window in qualifying, so that made for a long, difficult race. We had some really, really good pace, and we managed to come through and finish 10 positions higher than we started and with one of the fastest laps of the race as well. That was a good way to end the weekend, and now we’ll press on for Townsville.”
Round 7 of the Supercars Championship takes place on 11–13 July with the Townsville 500 at Reid Park Street Circuit.