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SBR Finish in Top 15 at Winton

Topics: Winton Motor Raceway

SBR Finish in Top 15 at Winton

Stone Brothers Racing
May 5, 2009

Winton turned on beautiful weather for today’s race and earlier qualifying session. Sunny conditions gave the SBR team a chance to ‘de-fleece’ and enjoy a rare Winton warm winter day.

Today’s 20 minute qualifying session was another disappointing result for Alex Davison and the IRWIN Racing Team when Alex finished the session yet again outside the top 20 in 24th position.

Throughout the session Alex reported via team radio that he was struggling with grip and was unable to get enough heat in the tyres.

Ross Stone – SBR Team Principal
“Alex was struggling with huge understeer and grip in qualifying. You almost have to have a whole different car step-up for qualifying but I think we have good cars for the race.”

SP Tools Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen improved on yesterdays qualifying effort of 27th to finishing 11th fastest for the session.

On the opening laps of the race it quickly became evident who was running sprint tyres as Lowndes streaked ahead of the field with lap times 2 seconds faster than the cars behind him.

As the race settled into a rhythm van Gisbergen found himself behind Murphy for a number of laps unable to get close enough to make a pass.

Paul Forgie – Engineer Car #4 (In Car Radio)
“Concentrate on your own line mate, don’t get mesmerised by the car in front of you.”

As the laps began to tick over the field remained in its racing order without incident before Lee Holdsworth was forced to stop his car just off the track due to a mechanical failure on Lap 20.

A Safety Car period was deployed on Lap 21 and SBR’s Pit Stop strategy kicked into gear with both cars pitting for four new tyres and a full tank of fuel. In a congested Pit Lane Davison was forced to wait behind van Gisbergen while his car was being serviced by the SBR crew. Both cars re-entered the track behind the Safety Car in racing order before the race was restarted on Lap 23.

At the halfway point of the race van Gisbergen was in 10th position while his teammate Davison was sitting in 22nd.

Shane van Gisbergen – Driver SP Tools Racing Car #9
“At the start of the race I let a few guys pass me, it’s a long race and wanted to just settle into a good rhythm. By half way I felt like the race became a bit mundane to be honest so I asked the guys to come out to the wall and cheer me on for a while which spurred me on for a bit.”

By Lap 40 selected teams began to make late Pit Stops to make use of their soft tyre allocation to sprint to the end. The field was in a constant shuffle for the remainder of the race as cars on soft tyres streaked through to the front with a 3 second per lap advantage.

With 10 laps to go van Gisbergen had Whincup hot on his tail but managed to keep him out before Marshall and Reynolds passed with ease on soft tyres. Davison worked hard in the dying stages of the race moving forward and with two laps to go had pushed himself inside the top 15.

Alex Davison – Driver IRWIN Racing Car #4
“The car is not handling the way I would like it to so the race was tough today. When we get back we have a test day which I am really looking forward to. We haven’t had a full test day yet so it will be a good opportunity to spend a day in the car and work with the guys on getting the IRWIN Falcon up there at Tasmania.”

Winton Race 2 – Results

Pos	Car#	Team	Driver	Vehicle
1	888	Team Vodafone	Craig Lowndes	FORD Falcon FG
2	5	Ford Performance Racing	Mark Winterbottom	FORD Falcon FG
3	2	Toll Holden Racing Team	Garth Tander	HOLDEN VE
4	10	Team Autobarn	Paul Dumbrell	HOLDEN VE
5	22	Toll Holden Racing Team	Will Davison	HOLDEN VE
6	18	Jim Beam Racing	James Courtney	FORD Falcon FG
7	15	Jack Daniels Racing	Rick Kelly	HOLDEN VE
8	24	Bundaberg Red Racing Team	David Reynolds	HOLDEN VE
9	77	Team Intaracing	Marcus Marshall	FORD Falcon BF
10	3	Sprint Gas Racing	Jason Bargwanna	HOLDEN VE
11	39	Supercheap Auto Racing	Russell Ingall	HOLDEN VE
12	9	SP Tools Racing	Shane van Gisbergen	FORD Falcon FG
13	1	Team Vodafone	Jamie Whincup	FORD Falcon FG
14	55	The Bottle-O Racing Team	Tony D'Alberto	HOLDEN VE
15	4	IRWIN Racing	Alex Davison	FORD Falcon FG