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SBR GET OFF TO FLYING START AT YAS MARINA

Topics: Yas V8 400

SBR GET OFF TO FLYING START AT YAS MARINA

Stone Brothers Racing
February 12, 2011

Stone Brothers Racing (SBR) continued their good form in Abu Dhabi tonight, with all three Falcons finishing the first race of the 2011 V8 Supercar Championship season in the top five. Alex Davison, in the #4 IRWIN Racing Falcon lead the SBR charge, equalling his career best result with a strong second placing.

After qualifying third on the grid, Davison made a blinding start which launched him into the lead before the first turn but a tenacious Jamie Whincup soon regained the lead before the end of the first lap. Davison then held his own displaying great race speed, which combined with some great pit work by the SBR crew enabled him to maintain his second placing until the finish line.

In the #9 SP Tools Racing Falcon, Shane van Gisbergen quickly put a disappointing qualifying performance behind him and set about blasting his way through the field over the 43 lap distance to cross the line in fourth place. Van Gisbergen once again provided fans with an awesome display of his flamboyant driving style, making his way past no less than ten competitors in the process.

Across t he garage in the #47 Lucky 7 Racing Falcon, Tim Slade also put in a brilliant performance, to round out the top five and create SBR history – with tonight’s race result being the first time all three SBR Falcons have finished in the top five. Slade’s race pace was nothing short of blinding, being the first of several drivers to set a race lap record during the evening.

Tonight’s result also provides another accolade for SBR with the Queensland based outfit now leading the Teams Championship – a title that they’ll be fighting hard to hang on to for the rest of the season.

Alex Davison – Driver, IRWIN Racing Car #4

“It’s been a tough time recently and with that come s added pressure so to pull tonight’s result certainly feels pretty good – especially to silence some of the critics by starting the season strongly helps set us up for a good year. It’s good to have a fresh start like we have. We’ve started with a new car and a new engineer in Dan Kroehn who’s done a great job and now we have a good base for the championship.

Hopefully there’s now going to be more consistency which is what we’ve been working on across all three cars and I think the result tonight is a reflection of the new people, plans and systems we have in place. Everyone at SBR has been working hard over the off-season to not only to make the cars faster but to work better together as a three car team in terms of our communication and standardisation of the cars and we’re generally working together better as a team and it’s paying dividends.”

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

“I got a good start and made up a few spots but we had to keep pitting early to keep on top of the tyre wear and we were hurting pretty badly towards the end there but it was a good race and great to get all three SBR Falcons in the top five, and even better for Alex to score a second place on the podium.

The pit crew did a great job on the stops and got me out in to clean air so I could put my head down and pump out some fast laps which puts us all in a positive frame of mind for tomorrow’s qualifying and race.”

Tim Slade – Driver, Lucky 7 Racing Car #47

“We had some pretty solid race speed which was good, obviously I didn’t really get qualifying as well sorted as I would have liked and struggled a little in comparison to yesterday but to finish fifth is a good result.

It’s actually the perfect way to start the season, especially with a new sponsor in Lucky 7 and hopefully we got a lot of TV time for them!

Shane and I had a good tussle at the end ad I tried a few different things to see if I could get past him but towards the end there a few alarms lights started to go off and it was a bit touch and go with regards to our fuel reserves so I had take the conservative approach and cruise the last few laps to make sure I made it home.

Tomorrow we’ll hopefully nail a good set up for qualifying again and if we can snag another top ten or better starting position then we should have another good race on our hands.”

Yas V8 400, Abu Dhabi – Race 1 (43 laps - 200 kms) RESULTS

1 88 TeamVodafone/Jamie Whincup
2 4 IRWIN Racing/Alex Davison
3 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon/Mark Winterbottom
4 9 SP Tools Racing/Shane van Gisbergen
5 47 Lucky 7 Racing/Tim Slade
6 2 Toll Holden Racing Team/Garth Tander
7 888 TeamVodafone/Craig Lowndes
8 61 Huzzah Racing/Fabian Coulthard
9 33 Fujitsu Racing/Lee Holdsworth
10 7 Kelly Racing/Todd Kelly

Yas V8 400, Abu Dhabi – Qualifying Results

1 888 TeamVodafone/Craig Lowndes 1:57.2290*
2 88 TeamVodafone/Jamie Whincup 1:57.4600
3 4 IRWIN Racing/Alex Davison 1:57.5290
4 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon/Mark Winterbottom 1:57.6190
5 55 The Bottle-O Racing/Paul Dumbrell 1:57.6280
6 47 Lucky 7 Racing/Tim Slade 1:57.7390
7 8 Team BOC/Jason Bright 1:57.7790
8 17 Dick Johnson Racing/Steven Johnson 1:57.7830
9 33 Fujitsu Racing GRM/Lee Holdsworth 1:57.8130
10 19 Mother Energy Racing/Jonathon Webb 1:57.9550
15 9 SP Tools Racing/Shane van Gisbergen 1:58.0110

The SBR Falcons return to the Yas Marina Circuit tomorrow for qualifying at 3.15pm local time, catch all the action on the Seven Network at the following times:

Sun Feb 13th
Qualifying 12.30am - 1.30am ADST on 7 Mate
Race 2 1.30am - 3.30am ADST on 7 Primary
Replay Qual & Race 2 1.30pm - 4.30pm