Rookie Andre Heimgartner has received guidance from two of the toughest touring car racers of all time after copping an on-track pummelling at Ipswich from some of the stars of V8 Supercars.
The 20-year old Kiwi, who drives the Super Black Racing Ford Falcon FG X, has two-time touring car world champion Paul Radisich and Bathurst winner Paul Morris in his corner after he was shovelled out of the way more than once during the three races at the Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint.
In Race 18 his brilliant season-best third place qualifying position translated into a 14th place finish after Craig Lowndes (Red Bull Holden Commodore) hit him on lap two at turn three. A subsequent driving error compounded the issue.
In Race 20, he qualified 12th but was pushed wide by Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney in turn two and found himself ‘hung out to dry’. He eventually finished 16th.
Radisich, who is SBR team manager, said he expected “a different” Heimgartner to front at the next championship event, the August 21-23 Sydney Motorsport Park SuperSprint.
“There is no doubt being the new kid on the block and being right up there everybody is out to gun him, but he is making life a little bit easier for them,” said Radisich.
“So I think he learned a hell of a lot on the weekend and I’d like to think from the next meeting onwards we will see a different racing driver in Andre.
“You can’t give an inch,” he added. “You have to dish back what is dished out … You have to stand your ground. You have to be on the pace from the moment the green light goes. The rules are the rules and you have to play within the rules.
“But play hard.”
Radisich said Heimgartner’s limited experience in the championship was on-show early in races in the way he reacted to being passed.
“I think he hasn’t quite got the head space to say ‘okay I have lost one place but I won’t try and get them back, I am going to try and protect myself and do whatever I can to hold that position, particularly for the first couple of laps’.
“Andre probably hasn’t been in such a competitive series. We know the development series is competitive but nothing like this. It is war and if you give one away you are losing 10. He has to get his head around that.
“So the first rule is do whatever you have to do to keep yourself covered and lock it down as fast as you can and he has to go through that process. It doesn’t matter how many times I talk to him he has to actually touch and breathe it and feel it.”
Heimgartner runs 22nd in the championship with a best finish of eighth in the Prodrive Racing Australia-prepared Falcon. Significantly, his average qualifying position is 13.7 and finishing position is 18.5.
Heimgartner regards Morris, one of the ‘black hats’ of the Australian touring car racing, as a mentor. Radisich, meanwhile, earned a reputation as one of the toughest drivers on the grid during the halcyon days of UK 2.0-litre touring car racing as a factory Ford and Peugeot driver.
“Paul (Morris) has helped me out a lot with that (Ipswich) and what they have both been saying is I just need to minimise the damage at the start of the race and not get caught up in battles with one car,” Heimgartner told v8supercars.com.au. “It’s better to think of the bigger picture.
“The speed is there and me and the team are working really well together,” he added. “Some people struggle for years to get that speed and to have it early on is quite good.
“But that speed means other things are being shown more than they normally would – because you are up the top there. We will look over some video, we will learn from that and come back strong at Sydney hopefully, qualify up the front and not have that happen again.”
Radisich agreed with that.
“It’s very hard to speed a slow guy up, it’s very easy to slow a fast guy down. This is just a part of the learning process. If he had done a year right down the back and then worked his way forward he would have been ready for it.”
