Dylan O’Keeffe says the knowledge he gained on Dunlop’s soft-compound tyre in his surprise Virgin Australia Supercars Championship debut at the recent Gold Coast 600 will be his biggest advantage heading into this weekend’s penultimate round of the Dunlop Super2 Series at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500.
The Super2 Series cars typically run on the harder of the Dunlop tyre compounds, but will use the soft rubber for the Sandown event.
The Garry Rogers Motorsport driver said the opportunity to race on the soft tyre during at the Gold Coast provided him with valuable knowledge ahead of this weekend.
“There’s no doubt that the single biggest thing I learned from the main game, that will help me with this weekend’s Super2 round, is what to expect from the soft tyre,” O’Keeffe said.
“Several of my rivals have already had experience on the tyre from their co-driving roles in the endurance races, so for me to have the opportunity to do a race on that tyre turned out to be very fortunate – otherwise, I would have been learning from scratch during the practice sessions.”
Following a sequence of strong results in the last couple of rounds, O’Keeffe sits fifth in the Super2 standings, but said qualifying will be the biggest challenge at Sandown.
“We’ve been improving all year, but qualifying is still the main thing I need to maximise,” he said.
“Some of my qualifying results have been good, especially Queensland Raceway, but at other rounds I’ve been down in the mid-pack, so we’ll be looking for some consistency to finish off the season.
“It will be especially tricky this weekend with the higher degradation from the soft tyre – everyone will really only get one or two opportunities to nail a perfect lap.”
This weekend’s Super2 action consists of practice on Friday, followed by qualifying and racing on Saturday and Sunday.
Dunlop Super2 Series – Round 6 Schedule
Friday, 8 November
9:15am – Practice 1 (40 min)
2:00pm – Practice 2 (40 min)
Saturday, 9 November
11:55am – Race 1 Qualifying (15 min)
4:15pm – Race 1 (22 laps)
Sunday, 10 November
9:30am – Race 2 Qualifying (15 min)
12:05pm – Race 2 (22 laps)
