News
Holdsworth thrilled with performance in racing return
Brett Holdsworth says he couldn’t be happier with the speed he showed in his full-time return to national-level motorsport, after recording a pair of second-place finishes in the opening round of the National Trans Am Series at the Adelaide 500 on the weekend.
Holdsworth qualified his TPS Racing Camaro in fourth position, and took advantage of a couple of incidents in Race 1 to finish second.
A strong drive in Race 2 netted another fine second-place finish, as he pulled away from his rivals.
While an unfortunate differential failure at the start of Race 3 ended Holdsworth’s chances of a fairytale podium in his racing return, he said it was still an excellent weekend overall.
“Considering how long it’s been since I’ve driven a powerful V8 race car in anger, I’m stoked – this weekend has definitely exceeded my expectations,” Holdsworth said.
“Our pace straight out of the box was strong, and I was able to work on my driving technique, to extract the best performance from the car with its base setup.
“It’s a quality field in the Trans Am Series, so if you told me before the weekend that I was going to score a couple of second-place finishes, I definitely would have taken it.
“The highlight of the weekend was Race 2 – I had clear track, and I was happy with the consistency of my lap times.
“The plan in Race 3 was just to bring it home and secure an overall podium, so the diff failure was a shattering blow.”
With his comeback race meeting out of the way, Holdsworth said the focus will turn to learning and improving.
“We now know where we’re at compared to everyone else, so it’s a case of going away, analysing the weekend and looking at how we can extract more speed,” he said.
“It’s not unrealistic for us to be fighting for race wins this season, but there’s some work ahead. I know there’s still more to come from my driving, but we also need to start experimenting with the setup of the car, and understanding how to optimise its performance.”
The next Trans Am Series round will be held at Sydney Motorsport Park, 27-29 March.