CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

Topics:  Queensland House And Land.Com 300

Stone Brothers Racing
August 22, 2009

Today’s 100km race at QLD Raceway ran 5 laps too long for SBR as van Gisbergen was set for his first career podium but fell back to 9th after his sprint tyres went off in the dying stages of the race. IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison had a nightmare start to the race when he experienced clutch problems on the grid, racing the whole 33 laps on sprint tyres he managed to recover well to finish 13th.

This morning’s Qualifying saw van Gisbergen move into the Top Ten Shootout after finishing 9th in the second elimination leg. Shane was unable to shake the stigma attached to his four Top Ten Shootout results finishing 7th quickset for the fourth time. Alex Davison’s qualifying was a big improvement on yesterday’s practice starting the 33 lap race from 12th position on the grid.

On Lap 1 of the race Davison fell back to 23rd position after struggling to move the IRWIN Racing Falcon off the grid at the green light. By Lap 3 he had put his sprint tyres to work and moved up to 17th dicing for position in the mid-field. Van Gisbergen made his compulsory fuel stop on Lap 7and re-entered with a clear track ahead of him. Van Gisbergen pushing hard on the following laps to close the gap on his Dunlop ‘Sprint’ tyres.

Eight laps later Davison had made his way into the top ten before pitting for fuel, after exiting pit lane he found himself behind the race leaders and a lap down. When the two lead cars peeled off to make their compulsory stops on Lap 20 Davison worked on making up lost ground.

Once the field reshuffled it became a 10 lap sprint to the finish with Shane dropping down the times as he struggled to hold onto his racing position. The race end was also frustrating for Davison as he suffered the same fate as his teammate, his tyres too tired to keep him in the top ten.

Shane van Gisbergen – Driver, SP Tools Racing Car #9

“Qualifying was good we made another Shootout which was great, and I qualified 7th again!

“I ran on soft tyres the whole race but we really needed the race to be 5 laps shorter.

“I pushed hard when I had clear track in front of me but I guess in the long run it probably hurt us in the end because my tyres were shot and I was unable to hold onto position.”

Alex Davison – Driver, IRWIN Racing Car #4

“We stalled on the line because we had a drama with the clutch. I could feel there was an issue when I drove out of the pits to grid up, it was really spongy so we bled it on the line. When we were waiting for the lights to go green I had the car pulled up on the handbrake and the car was driving forward even though my foot was on the brakes. It pretty much stalled as the lights went out and that basically is what ruined our race.

“Our pace was good and we cut back through which obviously wasn’t very difficult on the soft tyres, but relative to the front guys we were matching times. The tyres were hanging in there until we ran off on oil towards the end and from that point on we were struggling and there was no way I could hold the guys on fresher tyres back.”

QLD House and Land.com 300 Race 1 – RESULTS

1 1 TeamVodafone/Jamie Whincup
2 18 Jim Beam Racing/James Courtney
3 5 Ford Performance Racing/Mark Winterbottom
4 17 Jim Beam Racing/Steven Johnson
5 111 Wilson Security Racing/Fabian Coulthard
6 7 Jack Daniel's Racing/Todd Kelly
7 33 Garry Rogers Motorsport/Lee Holdsworth
8 25 Fujitsu Racing/Jason Bright
9 9 SP Tools Racing/Shane van Gisbergen
10 67 Supercheap Auto Racing/Tim Slade
13 4 IRWIN Racing/Alex Davison

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