Slade: Second win easier than the first

Slade became the 73rd different winner in Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercars history on Saturday when he won for the first time.

The breakthrough came from his 227th start.

Slade then went and doubled his wins with a second victory on Sunday – something he says came a lot easier having got the monkey off his back on Saturday.

“It’s true what they say, once you get the first one out of the way the second one is definitely easier,” said Slade.

“The first one there is still that, for whatever reason, element of doubt in your mind because you haven’t got it done before. Your brain is definitely a lot clearer doing those laps in the second race.

“Again I was fortunate that I had a really speedy car and was able to control it to a certain extent and manage the gap.

“Once we started to get close to home I started thinking about burnouts and stuff like that and sort of had to pull my head in and worry about getting the thing to the finish line.”

Form continuation no guarantee

In what is shaking out to be one of the most competitive seasons in Australian Touring Car history, with nine winners from 11 races so far, Slade says the Winton success is no guarantee that front-running form will be easy to come by at the upcoming rounds.

“It’s so hard to predict, the category is so competitive,” he added.

“We had an awesome weekend here, [but] you don’t go into the next race thinking you’re going to clean sweep that.

“Obviously a lot of hard work and knowledge goes into it, but sometimes there’s an element of luck as well. I think everything just worked in our favour this weekend and we nailed it.

“One positive thing that gives us a bit of confidence heading to Darwin is that Fabian [Coulthard] had some really good speed there last year. Traditionally the BJR cars have worked quite well on the high grip, new surfaces – and that was resurfaced last year – so that gives me a little bit more confidence heading there.

“But we’ll enjoy this moment and worry about that in a few weeks.”