Has that been a conscious decision on your part to try and build a reputation for yourself in this early phase of your career?

Yeah, for sure, Jess.

Obviously, start of last year, I come out with no really expectation.

Um, I was given such a good opportunity in a, in a great team, like I mentioned, and I just wanted to go out there and, and just learn.

And, um, I think I did that.

Obviously, Darwin was a, was a massive step forward in my journey last year.

But then I, I had a few bumpy, sort of rollercoaster rounds after that, and, and that's just how it is.

So a huge amount of experience crammed into that short period of time, but what experience do you bring to the endurance campaign now, having been the primary driver for the first time last year, and having someone like Tim Slade, who's got so much experience? So what do you do differently this year that you learned from last year?

... how was it from your point of view?

Um, no, look, honestly, from my point of view, battling Brodie for about 10 laps, uh, he was doing a lot of blocking, so it was a matter of time before, you know, even if I didn't get past him, someone, one of us was gonna get past.

Um, and yeah, obviously coming out of the last corner, he, yeah, he blocked pretty hard and then Anton was, was right, you know, looking for a move.

Um, and yeah, obviously I was up the inside.

I, I went for a move at one, which is quite difficult and, and is what it is, but I was up far enough.

Um, he obviously turned in, got me on the dirt, which then made me lose control and then hit him, um, which is, which is not ideal.

So obviously it was crap.

Yeah.

Do other, other drivers like it? And, and what about conditions? Uh, are the cooling suits sort of working overtime or not?

Yeah, for sure.

Um, you know, I, I don't know.

I think, I think it just suits my driving.

Um, it's sort of a weird track, you know.

It has a lot of quirks to it, uh, quirks to it, sorry, and you see that, you know, the heat plays a big role in the setup of the car.

Um, you know, the, the fitness of the drivers is really key to make sure you're really fit.

I would, I would expect to say, have those names in front of you and it's something to aim at because they're, they're all champions in their own right.

that I've got,

um, had that break between obviously Grand Prix and Taupo.

I sort of just, you know, wanted to get back into that rhythm of now make sure I'm top five every qualifying.

Don't, don't try and aim for pole.

This is very hard.

And a lot of things have to go right.

Um, so yeah, I did that obviously at Taupo.

Just go in

Right.

And I headed up the Gold Coast to, uh, yeah, try and, try and basically do some coaching and, and learn how to race a car.

And then, um, yeah, ended up obviously, yeah, moved back to Mount Gambier.

So I just floated around when I was really young, and then I've moved to Melbourne now, uh, end of 2023.

Oh.

Um, and then, yeah, when we finished off on Sunday, the qualifying times were about 2/10 off, um, from the simulator, so.

We've got a bit of tuning to do, but yeah, the Adelaide one's the same thing.

So we get it within a 10th of a second, which is-