Lowndes and Seton to start 44th Bathurst 1000 from ninth
10/10/2004 7:26 (Press Release) -
Ford Performance Racing (FPR) drivers Craig Lowndes and Glenn Seton will start tomorrow's 44th Bathurst 1000 classic from 9th on the starting grid following today's exciting top ten shoot out at Mount Panorama.
Lowndes' spectacular single lap effort saw the 30 year old triple Champion engaging in some low level flying on two wheels through the middle section of the Chase at the fastest section (295kph) of the 6.3 kilometre Mount Panorama circuit. When Lowndes' righted the car, he crossed another kerb on the exit of the corner costing valuable time. This dropped the CAT FPR Falcon driver from his 4th spot gained in qualifying, to 9th.
The top three shoot out lap times were set by Holden drivers Steven Richards (2:07.9611s), Jason Bright and Paul Dumbrell. Marcos Ambrose was the highest placed Ford driver in the shoot out and will start tomorrow's great race from 5th on the grid.
Despite being disappointed by the drop in their starting position, both Lowndes and Seton remain very confident of being able to mount a serious challenge for a breakthrough Bathurst victory for FPR tomorrow. They will be joined by Ford Credit FPV Falcon drivers Alain Menu and Adam Macrow, who will start the Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 from the rear of the field.
#6 Craig Lowndes - "I am disappointed with myself as the car itself was really good, it was really nice across the top of the mountain and there is no doubt that the lap was on a par with our qualifying time. I made a slight mistake through the Chase and got it up off the kerb higher than I wanted. I got it back down on two wheels and soldiered on, but it was unfortunate as the car is much better than where it has ended up in the shoot out at 9th. Tomorrow is over 161 laps and I'm looking forward to it."
#6 Glenn Seton - "Its nice to have pole position at Bathurst more for the prestige than anything else -as where you start really doesn't make any difference to the result of the race. We have seen many race winners not make the top ten in the past. Craig did a sensational job all week and he was trying very hard in that qualifying run. The car just got up a bit off the kerb and we lost a bit of ground there. We are still in a very good position for the race."
FPR returns to the Mount Panorama circuit at 7:15am tomorrow for the twenty minute warm up, with the grueling six and half hour, 1000 kilometre race scheduled to start at 10:00am.
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