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We took it to next level

It just goes to show the wins are a credit to the whole team.

I didn't think we could do any better than our clean sweep last year at Queensland Raceway, but we proved me wrong. That’s now my fifth win on the trot for 11 wins in total on the Ipswich track, but my mechanic actually has seven wins on the trot because he was with James Courtney a couple of years ago when he won.

It just goes to show the wins are a credit to the whole team. I didn’t think things would turn out so well when the engine blew on the Saturday. It was a strange feeling with Jamie (Whincup) still out on the track and my side of the garage frantically swapping engines.

I gave as much of a hand as I could and just had to have faith that the team would be thorough enough with the refit. The rest of the weekend went pretty smoothly with two great starts. We didn’t maximise our qualifying position on the Sunday but my race engineer JJ (Jeromy Moore) and I discussed the options.

We chose to follow the same strategy we used in Darwin of saving a fresh set of tyres for the race. It paid dividends there and we gambled it would do the same at Ipswich. We still believe it’s best to have a red-hot go at qualifying and then park it to have a fresh set of tyres left for the race.

It’s more beneficial than burning up tyres in qualifying. You don’t get any points for qualifying. Our fourth position on the grid was actually pretty good because it put us on the race line off the start and we were able to follow Frosty into the first corner.

We got past Will Davison down the back straight and had good speed on the hard tyre and were able to chase and then pass Frosty. Ipswich was the start of my charge on the championship lead last year and I’m hoping it will be the same this year. 

I know the points gap was about half as much last year, but mathematically it’s still do-able. I know it’s a long shot, but I won’t give up.

I only pulled back 40-odd points on Jamie at the weekend and I’m still over 200 away, so I’ve got to keep winning races and hope all three in front me have a problem along the line. Unfortunately, they’ve all been pretty reliable this year, but who’s to say they don’t make a driver or judgment error?