Morris charges into top five
11/6/2004 22:11 (Press Release) -
Sirromet Wines Holden Commodore driver Paul Morris overcame an alternator problem to charge into the top five in today's opening practice session for the fifth round of the V8 Supercar Championship in West Australia.
The 36-year-old Gold Coast driver clocked a best lap time of 56.445-secs around the 2.4km Barbagallo Raceway circuit near Perth. He emerged fifth fastest in the session, which was headed by Greg Murphy with 55.684-secs in a Kmart Commodore.
Morris recorded his quickest time on his 15th of 17 laps, before he was forced to withdraw from the session after an alternator belt broke on his VY Commodore.
The track has been resurfaced and the top 10 in practice were all more then 1-secs inside the race lap record of 57.995-set by Craig Lowndes in a Commodore in 1996.
Tomorrow there will be a further practice session, followed by qualifying, and then the Top 10 Shoot Out. Morris has qualified for the Top 10 Shoot Out once before this year, in round two of the championship at Eastern Creek in NSW in April. The first of the three races will be held tomorrow, with the remaining two races on Sunday. All three races are 100km.
PAUL MORRIS QUOTES: "The alternator belt broke so we had to park the car early. Our car set-up was good straight off, but we haven't fired our best shot yet. The car has good mid-corner grip and it's putting the power down really well. I started the session with an older set of tyres and then we put some newer rubber on to see what we could do. I got one quick lap on the good tyres, then I was held up by 'traffic', and after that I had to stop because of the alternator problem. I'm sure I could have gone quicker with more laps. I was second quickest when I stopped, but the others started going faster after that when more rubber went down so I dropped back a fewer positions. The grip is much better since they resurfaced the track. The game-plan tomorrow is to try and get into the (Top 10) Shoot Out. In these sprint rounds you have to qualify up the front. We're running a different engine here, but apart from that we haven't done a lot to the car since the last round in Darwin apart from scheduled maintenance."
RESULTS – PRACTICE:
POS DRIVERS CAR TIME
1. Greg Murphy Kmart Holden Commodore 55.684
2. Steven Richards Castrol Perkins Holden Commodore 56.223
3. Mark Skaife Holden Racing Team Commodore 56.277
4. Jason Bright PWR Holden Commodore 56.375
5. Paul Morris Sirromet Wines Holden Commodore 56.445
6. Steven Johnson Shell Helix Ford Falcon 56.516
7. Garth Tander Repco Valvoline Holden Commodore 56.547
8. Todd Kelly Holden Racing Team Commodore 56.591
9. Max Wilson Betta Electrical Ford Falcon 56.704
10. John Bowe OzEmail Ford Falcon 56.733
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS (after round 4): S. Richards 704, Ambrose 694, Murphy 665, R. Kelly 644, Bright 593, Ingall 514, Bowe 484, T. Kelly 457, Bargwanna 438, Tander 434. Other: Morris 386
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