Oran Park action begins for Orrcon Racing
14/8/2004 18:37 (Press Release) -
The action was extremely close throughout the practice and qualifying sessions at Sydney’s Oran Park circuit for Round Eight of the V8 Supercar Championship with one second covering the top 23 cars.
Orrcon Racing pair Jason Bargwanna and Mark Winterbottom will start tomorrow’s opening 54-lap race from 16th and 25th respectively.
Detailed below is information on the team’s progress throughout yesterday’s opening practice and today’s action.
Practice One - Friday 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Weather Conditions – Fine but extremely windy
Track temp 26.1 deg C Air temp 21.6 deg C
Practice Information – Six red flag during session. Team used the session as a test day purpose trialing alternative suspension and geometry settings on both cars.
Jason Bargwanna – Orrcon Racing Falcon #10
Fastest Lap – 1:10.8449 – Position 25
Comments:
- Car had an under steer condition costing time
- Team worked mainly on changing rear geometry and shock dampers during session
Mark Winterbottom – Orrcon Racing Falcon #20
Fastest Lap – 1:10.8452 – Position 26
Comments:
- Car has understeer entering corners and oversteer on exit of corner
- Car was reasonably balanced to start with but lost time when trialing different suspension setting
- Team will change Spring settings before tomorrow’s practice
Fastest time practice one – Paul Morris (Holden) 1:09.2659
Practice Two - Saturday 9:15am – 9:50am
Practice Three 11:30am – 12:05pm
Weather Conditions – Fine with a light breeze
Track temp 24.3 deg C Air temp 21.7 deg C
Practice Information – One red flag early in practice two.
Jason Bargwanna – Orrcon Racing Falcon #10
Practice Two – 1:10.0465 – Position 18 (-0.7984 on Practice One)
Practice Three – 1:09.7007 – Position 9 (-0.3458 on Practice Two)
Comments:
- Car is not stable in high speed corners, still a lot of time left in the car despite being ninth in the third practice session
Mark Winterbottom – Orrcon Racing Falcon #20
Practice Two – 1:09.8512 – Position 13 (-0.994 on Practice One)
Practice Three – 1:10.3794 – Position 30 (+0.5282 on Practice Two)
Comments:
- Between session team worked on ride height and suspension changes
- Car still suffering from understeer and oversteer
- This is Winterbottom’s debut at Oran Park in a V8 and is continually learning more about the circuit with every session
- Majority of time to the front runners is being lost in first sector
Fastest time Practice Two – Greg Murphy (Holden) 1:09.1639
Fastest time Practice Three – Mark Skaife (Holden) 1:09.1613
Qualifying (Field split into two groups 20 minutes each) Saturday 1:50pm – 2:25pm
Weather Conditions – Fine with light breeze
Track temp 23.2 deg C Air temp 21.6 deg C
Qualifying Information – Both sessions completed with no stoppages or incidents.
Jason Bargwanna – Orrcon Racing Falcon #10
Fastest Lap – 1:09.3148 – Position 16 (-0.3859 on practice three)
Comments:
- Car had slight understeer at start of session but appeared to be corrected when new tyres were put on
- Slight suspension change during session
Mark Winterbottom – Orrcon Racing Falcon #20
Fastest Lap – 1:09.7879 – Position 25 (-0.0633 on practice two)
Comments:
- Improvement in first sector times
- Flat spotted right front tyre on final set of flying laps.
Fastest time qualifying – Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 1:08.8269
Jason Bargwanna
“It is so close but so far. It has been a good job by the team as the car is a lot better than what it was when we first hit the track yesterday.
“Unfortunately we are at the wrong end of a tenth of a second. The car is much improved on what we had here last year, if we put this time in last year it would have put us in seventh showing how much the competition has stepped up this year.
“Balance in the car is the main issue at the moment and the team will be working on that tonight.”
Mark Winterbottom
“At the moment we have some set up issues with the car which we are trying to get our head around.
“It is not just one area of the car that we are suffering there is a combination of issues that include locking the brakes and understeer in turn one and getting power down exiting turn three.
“The balance is simply not there and the car isn’t riding the bumps which is vitally important on such an undulating circuit such as this. We have been looking at data over the last few hours and are confident of moving closer to a good balance tomorrow.”
Jamie Wattam - Orrcon Racing Head Engineer
“Today was a hard day at the office and we have still got a lot of work to do so we can be where we want to be tomorrow.
“A positive from the day is the immense improvement on last year here.
“We are scratching our heads a bit with Frosty’s car but I think we will looking to combine the best from Bargs’ set up to improve the Number 20 car, mainly in the area of braking to ensure the cars are balanced.
“Overall the cars are not that bad, it is a case of finding a tenth and we will be right there.”
The action continues with a morning warm up followed by a pair of 54-lap races beginning at 11:20am and 2:30pm respectively.
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