Jack Le Brocq gets a taste of Tickford’s Mustang at the Adelaide 500

With the new season ready to kick off it was exciting times with the announcement that the seat formerly held by Chaz Mostert would be taken up by former Tekno driver Jack Le Brocq.

Having stepped across from a Commodore to a Mustang and getting to know a new team, Jack proved that he was a great addition to the Tickford garage when he posted the 12th fastest time at the Tuesday Supercars test at The Bend Motorsport Park in an unfamiliar car.

Jack talked about how he’d been welcomed to the team and was happyabout the first day on the job. “The team have done a really awesome job getting up to speed so far. We learned a lot at the test day, I still have a long way to go myself, but they’re making me feel very comfortable and are giving me the tools to do the job, I’m loving it so far. Heading into Adelaide, it’s going to be pretty hairy, it’s going to be pretty cool. New shocks, new aero, for me a new Supercheap Auto Mustang, no one really knows what to expect, which should make it interesting, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Fast forward two days and the team were ready to go at the Superloop Adelaide 500, the season opening round of the 2020 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship season. With Le Brocq posting his first ever official time in the No. 55 Supercheap Auto Ford Mustang, he wasn’t too fussed with the placing, but was more interested in getting some solid seat time around the Adelaide street circuit in the new car, as well as giving the team a chance to make more changes. “The day was good, we got through it, and I got some laps under my belt in the Supercheap Auto Mustang. We’re not reading into the time sheets or stuff like that, it’s just about me getting comfortable. We had a bit of a play with tuning the car, but it was more about me getting confidence driving it. We’ve got a couple more sessions to work on that, so yeah, I’ll be fine.” Things continued to improve for Le Brocq in Friday has he became more comfortable in the car. Climbing the ranks from his Thursday posted place of 20th to 15th, his respectable times saw him in the 1:20s and very close to his Tickford team mates.

“I’m getting the hang of it, bit by bit. We started that last session with a race run on the oldest set of tyres we had, and that was good. We had fairly good speed for that, and the car felt all right in race trim, then on green tyres I just overdrove it, didn’t make the most of it. But it’s all good, I’m getting more comfortable and learning with every session.” Saturday’s Race 1 was a great season start for Jack who bought the Mustang home in 16th with a best time of 1m20.53 around the Adelaide street circuit.

“It was hard work, you obviously want to go forwards and not backwards, but I learned a lot from it. We got through the race unscathed, there’s some good and some bad to take away from it, but we got

through it, and we’ll go again to-morrow.” Regrouping overnight, Le Brocq and the team came back on Sunday morning with fresh ideas which saw the No. 55 Supercheap Auto Ford Mustang drop into 11th place in qualifying, so close to the top 10 and a brilliant grid result for Race 2. Driving a solid race, Jack only dropped one place from his grid position coming in 12th outright. A terrific start to the season in a new team and car. Tim Edwards Team Principal at Tickford summarised the weekend “To first come out of Adelaide with no major damage to any of our cars, and secondly to have all four in the top 12, it’s a really good start for us on the whole. Cam and Will were excellent all weekend, Lee made serious progress on his car, and Jack is making steady gains in getting up to speed in the Supercheap Auto car. We have a bit more speed to find, but half of the top six today were our cars. We’re pretty happy about that.” The 2019 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship next heads to Melbourne to support the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix, March 12-16.