The Bathurst chassis change that flew under the radar

TIM Slade’s final Bathurst 1000 campaign as a primary driver will not come in the same Triple Eight-built Gen3 chassis in which he started the season at Mount Panorama.

Mixed in between some higher-profile mid-season car swaps for Tickford Racing/Cam Waters and Matt Stone Racing/Nick Percat, V8 Sleuth can reveal PremiAir Racing also executed a low-key change of chassis earlier this year for Slade.

In fact, it was done straight after a miserable Bathurst 500 (Round 1), following which Slade’s qualifying form appeared to improve considerably relative to teammate James Golding.

That’s put Slade, who’ll retire as a full-timer at season’s end, into the chassis once destined for Peter Adderton.

“It’s no secret that Bathurst wasn’t a particularly good round for us or Tim,” PremiAir team manager Stephen Robertson told V8 Sleuth, with reference to the February visit to the Mountain.

“We wanted to give him every tool that we could and one of those was that we had the new chassis sitting there.

“That’s why we didn’t want to make a big thing of it, because we just wanted to give him a new chassis and take that chassis (as a potential variable) out of the equation.

“What it’s proven is there wasn’t anything wrong with the old chassis, it’s just the way we were setting it up with some of the nuances not quite where they should have been.”

That assessment gives PremiAir, still buoyed by its Sandown 500 podium breakthrough, a fully functioning spare car at its disposal.

“The other car is sitting there, turnkey, ready to go,” said Robertson.

“Which you always have a spare chassis but it’s always like ‘we just have got to do this and this’. That one (is ready to go). Which is good because the guys use that for pitstop practice every day so we have already been doing brake pad changes and all that sort of stuff.

“It’s an expensive mule but it’s worth it.”

PremiAir was the only team to conduct a full two-car test after Sandown, giving Peter Xiberras’ outfit a chance to further sharpen up in time for the biggest race of the year this coming weekend.

Slade and Golding will be partnered by Cameron McLeod and David Russell respectively.