Tony D’Alberto has endured the highs and lows of motor racing on V8 Supercars return to Sydney Motorsport Park this weekend.
The #3 Team HIFLEX driver finished the two races in 11th and 20th after a weekend of mixed racing and varied results.
D’Alberto qualified an impressive ninth for Saturday’s race. He made a strong start to run as high as seventh before fading to 11th.
In Sunday’s longer race, D’Alberto’s starting position was compromised in qualifying when he was baulked by a rival competitor.
The poor qualifying left D’Alberto a lowly 22nd. He climbed up to 16th and rolled the dice on a strategy, but would ultimately pay the price, losing three spots in the closing laps with fading tyre life. He finished 20th.
The next event on the V8 Supercars Championship calendar is the Dick Smith Sandown 500. D’Alberto will be joined by Dale Wood in the first of the two driver V8 races.
TONY D’ALBERTO (driver)
“We had a really good day on Saturday. The car was brilliant in qualifying, it was very fast and I feel we made the most of it,” said Tony D’Alberto.
“Qualifying up the front definitely helped for the race. We were clear of most of the traffic and were able to chip away to a good result.
“Today wasn’t so good, which was disappointing. I got held up in qualifying, and that really set the tone for the rest of the day.
“I go caught up behind Jonathon Webb on my fast lap. It wasn’t his fault, but once you get tucked right in behind someone, you lose all the aero and suffer.
“To compensate, we tried a very aggressive strategy, which was paying off. We got up to 17th, but the tyres just didn’t hold on and I dropped to 20th.
“We’re still battling with tyre life in general, so we’ll go away and see what we can learn.
“To make matters worse, we got a post-race penalty for an incident with Steve Owen. That put a bit of a dampener on it, but we are really now focussed on the endurance races.”
AL D’ALBERTO (team owner)
“It was an up and down weekend, but we fought well with what was thrown up at us,” Al D’Alberto said.
“We were very pleased with how Saturday’s race went. The team were faultless and Tony drove very well.
“All of our focus is now on the endurance races where we feel we have a good combination of drivers and car speed.”