Fabian Coulthard has labelled the shakedown of Brad Jones Racing's first Car of the Future Commodore as a success.
The New Zealand driver has been entrusted with the driving duties of the team's first chassis to be built under the new-for-2013 COTF regulations.
The team is conducting its 60km shakedown at Wodonga TAFE's brand-new 1.6km driver training circuit.
At the time of writing, the Albury-based team had minimal kilometres to complete before its allocated 60km were over, and while the team had experienced some technical glitches with the new Motec system, Coulthard was impressed in his first-ever drive of a Car of the Future machine.
“The car has been very good for most of of the day. There's a been a few small little things that have hindered us, like you get with most new cars, but on the whole we're happy,” Coulthard told Speedcafe.com.
“We've worked through few things, understanding new aspects of these cars like Motec. The engineerers are working through it all.
“The big thing is to get the gremlins out of the way so we can have a good solid test day at Winton next week and learn more about the car.”
Coulthard said that the short 1.6km track – only completed last November – was the perfect facility to conduct a shakedown test.
“It's not a bad little track,” he said.
“It's tight and twisty in spots, but it serves the perfect purpose for today.”
The next time the BJR Commodore will hit the track will be at Winton Motor Raceway next Tuesday for its first full test day. Team drivers Coulthard and Jason Bright will be present at the test.