It was a few days of organisation, late nights and many phone calls to organsie the last minute logistics to make the round in the Haier Volkswagen TCR, which was to be run by Melbourne Performance Centre at the Grand Prix. Landing in Melbourne a day early gave me the chance to finalize the sign writing on the Haier TCR, help the team set-up the pits at the track, head to their headquarters and spend some time on their driving simulator and the all important 5.3km track walk. Albert Park is unique as its only used for one weekend a year making testing and driving extremely rare. It is a street circuit, which means the roads are shut down as the concrete walls and catch fences are put into place to create a closed circuit for the weekend.

We had 2 practice sessions on Thursday morning and qualifying later that afternoon. The Hair TCR looked incredible both on track and off and really stood out from the crowd. As the practices went on our speed improved as I learnt the ins and outs of the track, but we had a brake issue as the pedal continued to become soft. As the session went on the brake pedal pushed closer to the floor. This meant I wasn’t confident in pushing the brake properly as I didn’t know if it was going to stop. Our first practise wasn’t flash, but the MPC team worked on the brakes for the next one. As we rolled out the pedal felt harder this time, however as the laps went on it became soft again as the issue hadn’t been resolved with the changes made, but we still man- aged to finish within the top 10 fastest in 9th.