We’ve sent TRT’s young gun reporter Erin McCarthy to the inner sanctum of the Caltex Young Stars wildcard entry in the 2022 Great Race. Here’s how Thursday played out for Matt Chahda and Jay Robotham.

Day 1 at mount panorama started in wet and miserable conditions for the first practice session.

Matt Chahda headed out in practice one on a damp track, but quickly adapted to the conditions: “Everyone is on the same bit of road, just about maximising it really.” Chahda completed a total of 18 laps during the session, amid a number of red flags, and completed his fastest lap at a 02:07.760 on lap 15.

“We’re just easing into it, which is sort of the plan for the whole weekend,” Chahda stated post-session.

“We didn’t get to do our second run which we really wanted to get done.” The gap from Chadha to fastest lap setter Will Davidson was 3.391 seconds.

When asked about the pace and feel of the car, Chahda was confident that “[he] knows the car is good … not too far from where we want it to be.” He noted that he struggled during the session to get in a clean lap, thanks to traffic and the red flags.

At midday both the Caltex young stars were greeted by Bathurst Legend Tony Hawton and his grandson, who was attending his 46^th consecutive year (not including 2020 due to Covid) at Bathurst.

The well-known Bathurst enthusiast spoke fondly over his years at Mount Panorama, showing Robotham and Amin Chahda (Matthew Chahda’s father and Caltex Team Principal) old pictures and speaking about past legendary drivers.

Jay Robotham went out for his first session in practice 2, in dry conditions.

After finishing 27^th, and 2.207 off of session leader Garth Tander, Robotham noted that: “Today was just building confidence in the car and getting laps under our belt.”

Robotham’s fastest lap was on lap 18, his final lap, showing the constant improvement with the growing confidence in the car. “The car is pretty good … just a little more in both of us in adapting to the car.”

The two young guns noted the jump from Super2 to Supercars, Chahda detailed that its; “definitely better to have the live telemetry going,” while Robotham also said that “Super2 is a tough category, but the main-game guys are a step ahead.”

As co-drivers, Chahda and Robotham have advantages in being a similar in height and both were a similar pace on their test days.

“Today we both found out we need to change our driving styles to suit the car,” Robotham added.

With the foreseeable bad weather, Robotham – who has had some Supercar sessions in the wet, though not at Bathurst – believes that, “It’s going to be a bit sketchy at first … We’ll just take it as it comes.”

Overnight Chahda believes that the car doesn’t need any big changes, and that its all about the drivers adapting to the car.

“We know it’s a good car set up wise, so we don’t want to go and do any wholesale changes to it, just little things maybe.”

Looking towards tomorrows qualifying session, Robotham specified on Thursday that, “we’re not sure who’s going to qualify the car tomorrow … whoever is quickest.”  Chahda stated that they “will have meetings tomorrow to sort out who will be qualifying for us.”