Todd Hazelwood braced for crucial Super2 season
Todd Hazelwood says the 2017 Super2 season is a crucial season for his development, as the 21-year-old privateer looks to make a push towards the Supercars main game.
Car of Todd Hazelwood
Matt Stone Racing
The likeable South Australian, known for funding his motorsport through sausage sizzles on non-racing weekends, is preparing for his second season in a Matt Stone Racing-run Commodore in the second-tier Super2 season, having switched from a Falcon in 2016.
Having finished third last year, and started the season with a shock pole position on the streets of Adelaide at what was his first run in the Commodore, Hazelwood says this is the year he wants to take the next step.
“One hundred per cent. Timing is everything, and I believe now is the time for me to showcase to everyone what I’m capable of,” Hazelwood told Motorsport.com when asked if this is a crucial season for him.
“I’m working harder than ever behind the scenes to do just that. Hopefully starting at Clipsal, my home event, we can hit the ground running and keep those results coming for the remainder of the season.
“It’s going to be a great year for us, I’m really looking forward to sinking my teeth into the car we started with last year, and keep learning and keep moving forward. Last year was very much a learning year, so hopefully with all the right ingredients and everything we learnt last year we can go two better”
Hazelwood added that consistency is key to taking the fight to the cars that are more closely aligned to main series teams.
“We kind of surprised ourselves when we got pole in Adelaide last year with the new car, to be honest we didn’t really know what we were doing with the car at that point, so to go out and beat four main series teams at what they do best was pretty special for a small team like Matt Stone Racing,” he said.
“We rode a bit of a wave last year, it was a but up and down, but you get that when you’ve got a new car and you’re the only driver on the team that has that spec of chassis. It’s tough up against the likes of Prodrive, which has four cars worth of information coming in from the main game plus two competitive guys in the DVS.
“It’s hard to compete, but we always knew that was going to be the challenge, and I think we did quite well. If we keep our head down and focus on the job at hand, I think we’ll be just fine.”
The covers came off Hazelwood’s 2017 challenger today, with GPS specialists Bigmate coming on as his new primary backer.
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