Seton 10th in storming drive from rear of the field at Winton
14/8/2004 15:08 (Press Release) -
Ford Credit FPV Falcon driver Glenn Seton has raced from 31st to 10th in today's action packed 300 kilometre (100 lap) V8 Supercar race at Victoria's Winton Raceway.
The 39 year old double V8 Supercar Champion was in superb form today, making amends for his rear of field qualifying result yesterday (Saturday). Seton made the most from the detailed set-up changes made overnight by the FPR crew.
CAT FPR Falcon driver Craig Lowndes endured another tough race at this 7th Championship round of the series, when on the 17th lap a shaved wire in his engine's airbox caused a fire, damaging the wiring loom. The 30 year old triple Champion lost 21 laps while the crew worked to replace the loom and send him back out on the track. Lowndes used the remainder of the race to gather valuable performance data for the team, finisihing in 27th place.
Both FPR Falcons displayed promising car speed today at Winton Raceway during the race which was held in cold, dry and overcast conditions. Seton and Lowndes avoided most of the incidents to bring both FPR Falcons home in the points.
The race was won by Holden driver Cameron McConville, with Rick Kelly second (Holden) and Jason Bright third (Holden). Ford's highest finisher was SBR driver Russell Ingall at 4th.
#5 Glenn Seton - "I had a very enjoyable race. I was very disappointed in myself after qualifying because I just didn't get the best out of myself yesterday. It is great to have come through from the rear of the field as I knew that if we kept consistent and kept pushing all the way through we would gain a reasonable result. There is always carnage in this game and today some drivers had a bit of the red mist thing happening. I have to give credit to the team as the car was reliable, the pit stops were good - despite one wheel gun becoming locked-on which wasn't the crew's fault. The consistency of the car, the brakes and the overall balance was fantastic today. I think that we're on our way up."
#6 Craig Lowndes - "The car was actually pretty good. We didn't have good car speed at the start of the race but we made an adjustment when I came in to fix the engine and our car speed and handling was very good. That side of it was encouraging, but the relatively minor problem we had was very disappointing as we were closing in on the top ten and looking at a potential top five finish.
The guys did a great job to get me back out there as it wasn't an easy fix and five of them all jumped in to get it done."
FPR Chief Engineer, John Russell - "Great work by Glenn's crew, after where he qualified no one would have thought that he would recover to finish where he did. Its the old saying don't give up - the team made great calls with Glenn's pit stops and fuel strategy, managing to unlap Glenn so he could race into the ten. Craig had excellent race pace, obviously the airbox fire set him back and we rejoined the race for the points and to prove the reliability of the engine.
A disappointing weekend but we are showing some promise and we are looking forward to Oran Park and really pushing forward from there."
Nick Fry, Group Managing Director, Prodrive - "A lot of positives can be taken out of this weekend, from a disappointing Friday I think that Craig's performance on Saturday in the wet was exceptional and having John Russell engineer Craig's car obviously worked very well. Glenn was disappointed with himself on Saturday but redeemed himself in style on Sunday. He drove a great race from the rear of the field to tenth. We can only apologise for what happened to Craig today because looking at his performance he was up for a top six finish but we had an engine wiring loom problem that ended that. Overall I think that it was a somewhat disappointing weekend, but it was one that showed some potential."
Seton's top ten result today has elevated him to 12th in the Championship standings with 623 points. Lowndes is ranked 27th with 450 points. Holden driver Jason Bright (1131) leads the points standings ahead of Steven Richards
(1126) and Rick Kelly (1116).
FPR heads to Sydney's Oran Park Raceway for the 8th round of the V8 Supercar Championship on August 15.
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