The Crittenden Automotive Library

SOFT RUBBER TO BURN ON SUNDAY

Topics: Norton 360 Sandown Challenge

SOFT RUBBER TO BURN ON SUNDAY

Stone Brothers Racing
August 1, 2009

Van Gisbergen had a day he’d rather forget after a horror start in the first race of the Norton 360 Sandown Challenge. After locking up the soft tyres on his SP Tools Racing Falcon on the first corner of Lap 1 Shane found himself in a number of different incidents before recovering well to finish 15th. Alex Davison drove his IRWIN Racing Falcon home to finish in 16th, the highest placed driver on hard tyres. With both cars set to take full advantage of their soft tyres tomorrow SBR have plenty

Qualifying 7th in today’s Top Ten Shootout van Gisbergen started the 33 lap race on soft tyres as a strategic move to streak to the front of the field. When Shane found himself at the back of the race pack after his mistake on the first corner it was decided by the team to change over to hard tyres on Lap 10 in order to save the soft tyres for tomorrow’s race.

Paul Forgie – Engineer Car #9
“In the scheme of things we really had a good day today. The guys did a fantastic job last night to repair the damage on the SP Tool Racing Falcon after yesterday’s incident in qualifying.

“To qualify in the top ten after missing quite a lot of practice was a great job by the whole team. It was great for Shane to get his confidence back up after such a big hit yesterday.

“The race was a little unfortunate really. We started in a good spot and went to the back, then got turned around by Bright after climbing back up to 17th and then went to the back of the grid again and came through to finish 15th.

“One of these days shortly we’ve got to have everything come together to get us on the podium, it’s all there we just haven’t been able to put it together yet.”

Shane van Gisbergen – Driver, SP Tools Racing Car #9
“I made an error on the first corner. We took the soft tyres off to save them for tomorrow.

“On a positive note it was good to get my confidence back in qualifying, we ended up in the usual position number 7 but hopefully we can build on that tomorrow.”

IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison was looking good to take part in his first career Shootout in this morning’s Qualifying but dropped just outside the top ten to finish 14th quickest in Leg 2. During the race Davison fell victim to the surrounding cars running on soft tyres but managed to stay out of trouble to finish behind his teammate in 16th.

Alex Davison – Driver, IRWIN Racing Car #4
“Today was one of those frustrating races. We were never going to get a better result than 16th running on the hard tyres, we were the first car that didn’t use soft’s at all.

“We were running pretty good and the car felt good throughout the first stint. During the stop we just put rear tyres on the car to save time and it made the car understeer diabolically so from that point onwards the car was pretty difficult to drive.

“Really the plan today was just to make the best out of a difficult situation and set ourselves up for tomorrow.”