PWR Racing Leads The Way At Clipsal 500 Season Opener
24/3/2004 0:39 (Press Release) -
Outstanding results from PWR Racing teammates Paul Weel and Jason Bright in the two 250km races that comprise the Clipsal 500, make PWR Racing the leading team after the first round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.
Weel’s amazing performance to start from 31st position after problems in qualifying, and finish 5th at the end of the first race and fourth at the end of Race 2, gave him third place for the round and the championship.
Bright, meanwhile, qualified strongly to start the first race from the front row, but a tangle with a backmarker in Race 1 relegated him to finishing 14th. A heavy shunt in the Sunday morning warm-up was straightened in time for him to leapfrog the field in Race 2 with a clever pit strategy, eventually overtaking Weel for a third-place finish that gave him fifth placing for the round.
Both races were won by defending champion Marcos Ambrose ahead of Steve Richards, but Weel said he believed his and Bright’s performances would hold them both in good stead to stay in touch with the leaders.
"Finishing third for the round was the ideal start to the season, it was just a bugger that they don't do a presentation to the round winners and I missed out on standing on the podium - again!" he said, a reference to last year’s Clipsal 500 where he was awarded third place after the podium presentation when another driver was penalised.
Weel praised his team for not allowing the weekend to unravel after his car failed to make an appearance in the qualifying session.
"We knew from the Grand Prix that the car was working well so I think everyone was a bit down after the qualifying session on Friday, but we knew the race has been won from the back of the grid before, so we set ourselves to try to finish somewhere between 10th and 15th, we thought that would be a good starting point for the second race.
"Our game plan in Race 1 was to take it easy for the first 20 laps or so and start attacking around the middle of the race, but I'd passed nine cars in the first lap so we just kept going and by the middle of the race we were already in the top 10 and ended up finishing fifth.
"Race 2 was a fair bit tougher because I flat-spotted both my front tyres while overtaking Todd Kelly and had to run the last 30-40 laps with tyres that could have punctured at any minute.”
Bright said the odds had been stacked against him standing on the podium. “Starting from 14th in Race 2 was never going to be easy, and after the tangle with the tyre barrier in the warm-up we were well behind schedule with our car preparation,” he said. “My team did a fantastic job to get the car to the start.”
He said the decision to stop for tyres early had been a successful gamble. “I radioed the guys and said ‘get me out of here’ when I was surrounded by backmarkers. We knew stopping for tyres so early would count against at the end of the race, but we were able to push hard all day.”
Weel added: "My car was fast but there's definitely more to come, we're not happy yet - it's still not very good to its tyres on rough surfaces like Adelaide and I think we'll be able to match Ambrose or anyone else out there for pace on a smoother surface such as Eastern Creek.
"It's really encouraging to be placed third after the first round but realistically, we've got to do this week in, week out. I was sixth last year until Oran Park (Round 8) when our lack of car development really started to hurt, so we're confident of being able to stay inside the top five all year.
"PWR Racing has another test session on Monday at Winton so both Jason and I reckon we can make some more gains in car speed and tyre life that we can take to Eastern Creek and New Zealand with us."
Release Date: 22/03/2004
PWR Racing
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