It was a career-best finish for Shepparton product Garry Jacobson in the Melbourne 400 at Albert Park at the weekend, crossing the line in sixth position after an excellent drive.
Described by the Goulburn Valley native as his home track, Jacobson shook off a sub-par start to the V8 Supercars Championships season with a clinical showing around the new-look Albert Park circuit.
The weekend started promisingly for Jacobson on Friday afternoon, as he drove beautifully in the Qualifying round to secure P9 for Saturday’s main event.
Driving in front of a 100,000 strong crowd, Jacobson said he really enjoyed getting out their and driving on the Friday.
“Good day out for me, top 10 result, which I’m verry happy with,” Jacobson said on Friday afternoon.
“We got there by getting back to basics for us. After Tassie we were a little bit gutted with not being able to compete how we wanted to.
“We came out strong qualifying P15 for the first race and went aggressive with soft tyre strategy, made some passes in the first couple of laps and then responded to when the tyre was giving way like everyone else’s situation was around lap 7/8 to pit for hard tyres.”
Putting himself in a nice position heading into the weekend’s feature race, Jacobson worked his way through the field expertly on Saturday afternoon, making moves from the get-go as he stormed past his competitors.
Despite his improved driving, the Shepparton export couldn’t make up enough ground to threaten the race leaders, as Chaz Mostert took advantage of a Shane Van Gisbergen tyre failure to secure victory at Albert Park.
For Jacobson, however, the top-six finish takes him off the bottom of the season standings, where he now finds himself sitting in 22nd position with 281 points.
Running alongside the Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, the occasion was extra special as hundreds of thousands of supporters packed the renowned Albert Park precinct to watch the race.
The V8 Supercars Championship season now moves onto Perth for race four, running from April 30 to May 1.