HRT to announce endurance lineups; Lowndes with Skaife at both events
12/7/2000 20:32 (Shane Rogers) - Championship leading Holden Racing Team sources have confirmed that they are set to announce their driver line-ups for the Queensland 500 and FAI 1000 tomorrow, with few surprises. Craig Lowndes will partner championship leader Mark Skaife in both races, while British Touring Car Championship Vauxhall drivers Jason Plato and Yvan Muller will drive the second car at Bathurst in their first V8Supercar start.
With the BTCC drivers having to race at Oulton Park on the same weekend, HRT will run only two cars at the Queensland 500, with Mark Noske and Todd Kelly promoted from the Young Lions team to the main team’s number two car. Noske and Canberra race winner Kelly will revert to their usual Young Lions mount for the FAI 1000.
The driver line ups for the premier team are in contrast to last year’s combinations where Lowndes and Skaife were run separately, to preserve both driver’s championship chances. With Lowndes now 226 points behind Skaife (and only 480 points available in the sprint events remaining) his chances of winning the series, which were slim before the announcement, now are virtually zero.
Lowndes won the Shell Championship Series in 1999, but the conservative strategy taken in the Endurance races in order the seal the championship may have cost him a Bathurst victory. Lowndes and co-driver Cameron McConville finished second in last year’s FAI 1000.
For Jason Plato it will be his second start at Bathurst, after setting the SuperTouring lap record at the 1997 Bathurst 1000 in a Renault Laguna he shared with Alain Menu. For Frenchman Muller, it will be his first Bathurst start.
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