Seton and Lowndes Qualify 14th and 15th in Sydney
4/4/2004 8:39 (Press Release) -
Ford Performance Racing drivers Glenn Seton and Craig Lowndes have qualified 14th and 15th respectively for tomorrow's second round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway.
Seton, 38, powered his Ford Credit FPV Falcon to a best lap time of 1:32.6873s during the highly competitive qualifying session held in overcast and humid conditions.
CAT FPR Falcon driver Craig Lowndes qualified just behind his team mate in 15th after being unable to complete a second run on new tyres in the final stages of the session. This was due to his car being called into the pitlane for a minimum weight check by race officials. By the time Lowndes reached the pits, the window to complete a flying lap had passed, ending his qualifying session with his best lap time of 1:32.7471s.
Both FPR drivers reported significantly improved cars during the qualifying session which was held in overcast and humid conditions in Sydney. The fastest time of the session went to Ford driver John Bowe (1:31.8820s) ahead of Holden driver Mark Skaife (1:32.1027s) and Ford's Russell Ingall (1:32.1913s).
The top ten shootout saw the top three order change to Ford driver Marcos Ambrose from Holden drivers Mark Skaife and Steven Richards.
#5 Glenn Seton - "We all want to be in the top ten, but on the upside we have made major improvements to the car since the Grand Prix and Adelaide. I really wanted a top ten starting position for the team, but 300 kilometres around Eastern Creek is a long way and I don't think that it is imperative to start from the top ten to gain a strong result here. We have developed a great race car this weekend and I look forward to tomorrow."
#6 Craig Lowndes - "We made two stops to make some adjustments and we had improved the car considerably, but in the process we lost the advantage of our new tyres and we had fallen out of the top ten, so I had to pit again for a final new tyre run in the closing stages of the session. I was called in to scale the car and this took longer than we allowed for our tyre stop and we basically ran out of time to complete a final flying lap. The car is far better than where we are on the grid - 15th is not a good representation of how much we have improved the car. The crew has done a fantastic job to resolve the problems we have had this weekend and it would have been good to reward them with a top ten qualifying result."
FPR Chief Engineer, John Russell - "It was unfortunate that we missed Craig's final run on new tyres, but that's the rules. We were sure of a better result as he had a good car today. Good effort by Glenn, he has been working on a strong race set up all weekend and just missed out on making the top ten. The crew has done a fantastic job considering that they worked all night on these cars. I think that we could be in quite good shape for tomorrow - we'll see what the race brings."
Tomorrow's 300 kilometre (77 lap) race will start at 1:30pm, following the V8 Supercar warm up at 10:40am.
Release Date: 03/04/2004
Ford Performance Racing
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