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Groves in a “better place” after successful test
A recent test at Winton has provided Grove Racing with added confidence heading to Bathurst.
The Grove Racing’s Porsche 991 GT3R debuted earlier this year and was the only one in Australia before Dutton EMA Motorsport announced its similar program spearheaded by Cam Waters.
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Racing in the competitive Pro-Am category of Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS, the Grove father-son team have finished a best of second at both Phillip Island and The Bend as the combination target Porsche’s first win of the season.
“It’s the first time we’ve been in the car since The Bend, so it was good to get back in,” Brenton Grove said.
“It took me about one and a half laps to kind of get my head around it and then from there it was straight back into the test program.
“It’s relatively an easy car to drive, it was more just understanding exactly how it needed to be driven again and them from there it was quite fun.”
The Groves used the track time to work on weaknesses identified following The Bend and emerged from the day pleased with the progress.
“We had four or five different things that we wanted to try and different philosophies that I guess we kind of worked through at The Bend,” Grove explained.
“We realised there were some deficiencies with where we were at, so we had a really strong plan to work through. Most of it all came off, so I think we’re in a much better place in terms of understanding and getting the most out of the car, then we were when we last drove it.”
For father and co-driver Steve, it was a matter of continuing the learning process during the day and reacquainting himself with the Porsche.
“He was the same as me, straight on the pace,” said Brenton. “Steve really enjoyed it got the most out of the car and I think he learnt quite a bit as well about how the car wants to be driven.
“Between the two of us we were able to get to a pretty good place by the end of the day.”
Focusing on Bathurst, Brenton is confident the duo will score a strong result at the Mountain.
“Bathurst we weren’t so far away last time we were there,” he explained.
“We’ve learnt quite a lot now as to how the car wants to be set-up and how we should be driving it, so I think by the time we get back to Bathurst it will be quite a good indication of where we are at, and if we’ve made any progress relative to some of the other teams.”