Triple Eight waiting on new parts before starting Supercars testing
Triple Eight will not hold an official in-season test until it has new parts that could help it close down the gap to the dominant DJR Team Penske Supercars squad
The factory Holden squad ran a driver evaluation day at Queensland Raceway on Thursday with its Blancpain Asia driver Jazeman Jaafar and promising Super2 talent Brodie Kostecki driving.
Evaluation days do not count as official test days and are restricted to drivers who have not raced full-time in Supercars during the last three seasons and they must not have raced at five or more Supercars events in the last year.
A number of key teams, including Erebus Motorsport and Walkinshaw Andretti United, have opted to use one of their three full test days already.
Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton says the squad wants a suite of new parts to test before it uses up a day of testing.
"For the full test day, we want to have some bolt-on shiny bits to make us go faster," said Dutton.
"That takes time to get the manufacturing done. We don't have all of that ready to bolt on yet.
"It's easy to say 'work harder', but you have to decide what you want. You don't just throw darts at a dartboard with your eyes closed.
"You've got to pick your target, and go 'we believe from what we've seen this year that this is the direction that we want to go'.
"The engineers have been working hard on that, and that's why we're not testing earlier."
Dutton says he is not expecting huge gains from the incoming upgrades but added: "Any time you go to the track, you get a chance to test and make some improvements".
Triple Eight's evaluation running comes against the backdrop of uncertainty regarding 36-year-old Jamie Whincup's plans beyond the 2020 season.
While not linking the evaluation specifically to Whincup's future, Dutton did say that it is important to get a look at potential new talent.
"We'll see how that goes. It's always interesting," he said.
"We try and not just look at the year we're racing, but we're always trying to plan for the future as well and have thumbs in many pies."
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