Leanne Tander Blog: Muscling up in Darwin

It was so good to get up to Darwin for our third round this year. It was zero degrees when I left Melbourne and then, only a few hours later, I landed in Darwin to be greeted by 30 degrees and sunshine.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any time to go fishing while I was up there because for drivers, the race meetings are pretty flat out. I spent my first day in Darwin at the track unloading the truck, setting up our pit area and walking the circuit - it had been 5 years since I raced there last so I needed to re-familiarise myself with the track layout.

We hit the track on Friday, with two practice sessions. My first one was pretty ordinary. Although I was placed 9th out of 32 cars, the car felt very soft and slow to respond and I knew we could improve. After a few changes to the car, I went out for practice 2 and improved my lap time by nearly one second, to sit 6th for the session. I was much happier with the car but, just like most drivers, wanted to go even faster.

On Saturday morning it was time for qualifying. We get one brand new set of tyres per race meeting, and these "green" tyres offer a lot more grip than used tyres, so we wait until qualifying before putting them on the car.

My first flying lap on the green tyre was 1.5 seconds quicker than my best time in practice, and my second lap was a smidge quicker again. Unfortunately for me, however, everyone else went quicker as well so I recorded the 5th fastest time. Still, the team and I were happy because it was our highest qualifying position so far.
Race one didn't quite go to plan, however. Starting from the third row of the grid, I got a good jump off the line but when I changed into second I experienced fuel vaporisation due to the heat, causing the engine to momentarily stutter. The engine got going again, but by then I had been swamped and fallen back to 12th. I fought my way forward to finish 6th.

The final two races of the weekend were fairly uneventful for me, finishing 7th in race two and 5th in race three. The good news is that I have moved up in the championship standings to 6th and, with 5 rounds still to run, I think I have a good chance of finishing the year off on the podium!