Historic day for Dick Johnson Racing
4/7/2004 11:43 (Press Release) -
For the first time in its long history Dick Johnson Racing had all four of its Fords placed in the top ten.
In the V8 Supercar Championship Warren Luff finished the days only track session in fifth while teammate Steve Johnson was in seventh. In the Konica Series, DJR's up 'n' coming star Owen Kelly snatched pole in the dying seconds of qualifying and 'Mr Consistent' Jose Fernandez held on to take 10th place.
"It was a good day for Shell Helix Racing, Team Fujitsu and Dick Johnson Racing," an upbeat Dick Johnson said.
"The team as a whole has been improving from round to round so we felt confident that it was only a matter of time before everything came together.
"But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves it's only Friday, there is an awful lot of racing ahead. We've had a good start but that is all it is, a start, we've still got plenty of hard work ahead of us.
"We've got to keep on improving so that come Sunday we can look back at a successful weekend not just a successful Friday."
It was Shell Helix Racing's Warren Luff that proved to be the surprise pack in qualifying, finishing fifth in some very good top five company.
"I was expecting that we'd be competitive today, but I didn't have a fifth placing in mind," Warren Luff said.
"I got to go to my first V8 Supercar media conference and I realised I was in very good company. To be sitting next to Marcos Ambrose, Jason Bright, Russell Ingall and Steven Richards was a bit surreal.
"Hopefully this is the start of better things to come."
With some strong development over the last month, and success today, Luff is expecting his Ford to continue improving over the weekend.
"The team has been very happy with the progress made to both Fords lately, we've found some more speed and improved set-up," Luff said.
"It was important for us to do well early this weekend, we showed we could be competitive early in Perth recently but a damp qualifying spoilt things.
"To have both Steve and myself in the top seven in first practice is a positive start and we are both looking to improve.
"I think that we will get better tomorrow, our tyres were not the best today so it is exciting to think what we might do on new rubber.
"As Dick (Johnson) said, we need to keep moving forward, if we can do this then we'll be happy. Having said this we are all very happy with today's performance, we have enjoyed our day."
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