Stanaway reveals crucial development after Taupō

For the first time this season, Richie Stanaway finally felt he had a strong race car underneath him, in what could be the spark to a resurgence for the PremiAir Racing recruit.

Stanaway finished 17th, 21st and 13th in the three ITM Taupō Super 440 races, with the middle result undone by a failed strategy gamble.

On Sunday, the 2023 Bathurst winner qualified 17th ahead of Cam Waters, who made a mistake. Stanaway was 0.8s off the pace, and 0.5s away from a Shootout berth.

However, the race came to Stanaway, who finished 13th, three positions behind teammate James Golding.

Where Golding raced from 10th to 10th, Stanaway made up four positions, and crucially felt he had made progress on his race car.

“We had a disappointing qualifying, we just didn’t have enough speed, but we had some really good pace in the race," Stanaway said after Sunday.

"It was very promising, the strongest I have been all year in terms of race pace, so if we can combine that in the future with some better track position, we have some potential to get a good result.

"There are a lot of positives to take away from the race this afternoon. There’s also a few little things to work on and hopefully we are better off later in the season.

"I think driving on last year’s tyre last year made me realise I haven’t really been maximising the new tyre we have for this season, so today I went into the race with an objective of doing a better job of maximising the tyre we have to race on now for the rest of the season.

"Part of that involved being able to extend the first stint which made the race a lot better for us, and it was a lot more enjoyable, being on the aggressive side at the end of the race. So it is something that we will definitely be using throughout the rest of the season."

Stanaway is 22nd in the points, 120 points behind Golding and 229 away from the 10th position cut line.