Bright grabs Championship lead
14/8/2004 15:09 (Press Release) -
Jason Bright has claimed the lead in the V8 Supercar Championship Series with a stirring comeback performance in the 300km race at Winton Raceway to finish 3rd and capitalise as his championship rivals faltered.
By contrast, PWR Racing teammate Paul Weel experienced the lows that V8 Supercar racing can bring, forced to park his car at the half-way point of the race due to a malfunctioning brake master cylinder, and watch the stunning race finish from the team garage.
Bright’s charge from near-last to third place was just one component of an extraordinary day, as championship leader Marcos Ambrose slipped from contention after spending 25 laps stranded on the infield, while Cameron McConville made a courageous dive up the inside of fellow Holden racer Rick Kelly on the penultimate corner to claim a career-first race and round victory.
Bright’s roller-coaster of a race began from 7th position on the grid, but he was soon in podium contention after his crew gave him a brilliant six-second pitstop for tyres during a safety car period which brought him back on to the track provisionally leading the race.
With many other teams gambling on an early fuel stop around Lap 37, Bright opted to wait for another safety car period on Lap 41 but was shuffled back to 8th position. However, the true test came for Bright when he spun after contact with HRT’s Mark Skaife on Lap 55, rejoining in last place with his day seemingly in ruins.
“I was just turfed – turned around in front of the whole field,” he said afterwards. “I still don’t know how they all missed me. Cars were coming around the corner ‘blind’ and coming straight at me. That could have been the end of our race right there.”
Bright didn’t give up and set off in pursuit of the field, picking up seven places before he and his crew took a bold gamble when the safety car came out again on Lap 78 by pitting for new tyres.
“It was definitely a gamble to stop for tyres, but at that stage we were only about seven positions ahead of last and we decided it was worth trying,” he said.
Emerging from the stop at the back of the field, Bright charged over the next 22 laps and had arrived on the heels of the McConville-Kelly duel when the chequered flag finally dropped.
“We certainly had better rubber than everyone else over the last 8 laps and I thought we had a good shot at winning. Another couple of laps and we might have.”
The result gives Bright a slender five-point lead in the championship standings, and the misfortune of Ambrose and an average day for fellow championship contender Steven Richards has blown the championship wide open with three other drivers within 26 points of Bright.
Weel’s DNF, his second this season, drops him to 20th position in the standings in a disappointing result after a strong start to the season.
“We just have to salvage what we can from here,” Weel said. “It’s a pretty big hit to our hopes of running in the championship top 10, but we’re not about to give up. We’ll have a good look at what went wrong and try to make sure it won’t happen again.”
The next round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series is at Sydney’s Oran Park on August 13-15.
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