In an unexpected turn of events Jack Perkins made his racing debut for the Holden Racing Team at the Sydney Motorsport Park Super Sprint today.

Perkins took over driving duties of the #22 Holden Commodore VF this weekend after James Courtney was hospitalised when he was hit by flying debris in a freak accident at the track yesterday.

Today’s race format consisted of a qualifying session and a 16-lap race on hard tyre compounds and the same on soft tyre compounds. While the team is still struggling with single lap speed compared to the rest of the field, Perkins’ qualifying times were comparable to his stablemates - he started both races in 20th.

Garth suffered an electrical issue with his engine in the first qualifying session which saw him finish 25th, but the team resolved it and had him back out for the next session where he qualified 16th.

Tander, as always, was quick off the start line in Race 21 and had jumped two places by turn one. By the end of lap one he had comfortably settled into position 18. With just three laps to go in the brief 60km race Tander was hot on the tail of Todd Kelly, and while he fought hard to try and pass he had to be content to finish where he was in 18th.

Perkins too made a solid start and moved to 19th on the opening lap. With little passing opportunity in the hard tyre sprint, this is where he stayed for the remainder of the race.

Race 22 provided a little more action in the opening laps with a number of cars finding their way into the dirt. Tander and Perkins both narrowly avoided an out of control Bright who skidded next to them towards the end of lap one. Tander swiftly made his way to 11th position and Perkins moved up two places to 18th. By the end of the race Moffat had snuck past Perkins placing him 19th and Tander remained in 11th.

The V8 Supercars kick off tomorrow with a 20 minute qualifying session at 11:45am followed by a 200km race at 2:00pm (AEST).

Garth Tander, #2 Holden Commodore VF

“It was a tough day and obviously qualifying this morning put us behind the eight ball. Completely missing the first qualifying really put us behind for the second qualifying session, so both grid spots were poor.”

“Then in the races it’s hard to do anything here, you get all the cars off the line and do the first lap. Then that’s it, you just settle into a train and follow each other around. There’s not much you can do here passing wise. That was the day.”

“Tomorrow is another opportunity so we have a lot of work to do overnight to try and improve the qualifying car. On the soft tyre in that second race it looked like we had pretty good tyre life compared with the rest of the field. So we will do that work overnight, then wake up in the morning and see what weather we’ve got – the forecast is pretty average.”

Qualifying for Race 21 Result: 25th
Race 21 Result: 18th
Fastest Lap Time: 1:33.0340

Qualifying for Race 22 Result: 16th
Race 22 Result: 11th
Fastest Lap Time: 1:31.7290

Jack Perkins, #22 Holden Commodore VF

“We were a bit behind the eight ball at the start of the weekend because obviously it’s not my car and my championship. But I think all things considered we didn’t do too bad a job in qualifying even though the positions didn’t reflect it.”

“By comparison to my teammates I think we were reasonably competitive, but it’s all just a learning curve this weekend. It’s my first time with a new tyre in car #22 and in the races I just wanted to stay out of trouble. We had pretty good speed in both races, in the first one I just sat behind GT and we ended up similar pace and it was pretty hard to pass.”

“In the second race we were caught up in some traffic and we were a mile quicker than where we were running and I think we probably deserved a top 15 based on our speed. But that is motor racing and the car came back reasonably straight.”

“Thanks to everyone at HRT for the day, nothing went mechanically wrong and I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”

Qualifying for Race 21 Result: 20th
Race 21 Result: 19th
Fastest Lap Time: 1:33.1710

Qualifying for Race 22 Result: 20th
Race 22 Result: 19th
Fastest Lap Time: 1:31.7700