It has been a weekend of learning so far for Pollicina Motorsports. Coming to Bathurst with a car they have never driven before, Jim Pollicina, John O’Dowd and Simon Middleton threw themselves into the deep end acquainting themselves with their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII and re-educating how to drive around Mount Panorama in an all wheel drive car. But as the weekend has progressed, so too has their confidence.
The fruits of their hard work are now starting to show after a fast paced one hour qualifying session at the Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour. Owner-driver Pollicina was elected to qualify the car and O’Dowd was on standby to assist in the car’s progress in the field. After the first three laps of the session, Pollicina was sent out to not only scrub new tyres in readiness for tomorrow’s race, but to qualify in a decent position in the 42-car field.
Throughout Pollicina’s stint, he was hovering in the low 2m40s bracket before he finally broke through into the 2m30s, setting his best lap for the weekend with a 2m38.5865s on his eighth lap. Although admitting some disappointment that he wasn’t as fast as he’d liked to be, he was still happy that he was constantly improving.
“I’m disappointed with the times so far, but the car has got more pace in it,” he said. “As I am familiarizing myself with the car, I am getting faster and faster. But where we start is anyone’s guess and with the amount of safety cars we had in last year’s race, anyone can win. To stay in this race, you have to be on the lead lap.”
O’Dowd took over the Lancer to complete Qualifying and also broke through into the 2m30s, bettering Pollicina’s time to be knocking on the door of the top 20 with 2m37.2285s. Although he had a few more laps to break through into the top 20, it wasn’t enough. “We got a little bit more pace in it, but it’s a 12 Hour race so anything can happen,” O’Dowd said. Pollicina, O’Dowd and Middleton will start tomorrow’s race from 21st position, but the upside from qualifying was the car was getting quicker and they were showing much more confidence than they did at the start of the weekend.
The plan for tomorrow’s race is for Middleton to start and do the first 90 minutes before Pollicina takes over driving duties, followed then by O’Dowd. With factors such as the inclement weather, Safety Cars and pit strategies, the trio remains optimistic for a good showing in tomorrow’s race.
The 2010 Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour begins at 6:30am tomorrow morning and finishes 12 hours later at 6:30pm.