Jones' certain race win shattered
10/10/2004 7:27 (Press Release) -
Team BOC’s Andrew Jones has had his Konica Minolta V8 Supercar race turned upside down after a mechanical failure and crash in the last few laps of today’s 25 lap encounter at Bathurst.
Jones was in a commanding position, some seven seconds ahead of his nearest competitor and with only four laps left to run his Team BOC Falcon initially dropped a cylinder. The lack of power affecting his lap times by around a second a lap.
With Greg Ritter closing in, Jones was forced to push his injured car to the limit to ensure his race win. Unfortunately his attempts were more than the car could handle and the Konica Minolta Champ grazed a concrete wall, breaking the front suspension.
“I am very, very disappointed. I had such a big lead and I can’t believe it ended the way that it did,” said Jones. “We had miles more speed than anyone around us and I really wanted to win.”
Commenting on what happened in the latter stages, Jones added – “First of all I notice a big drop in power and I could tell by the sound of the engine that I had dropped a cylinder. I think I lost two seconds on that lap, trying to work out the best way to drive it, now that I had no real straight line speed.”
“I could then see [Greg] Ritter catching me and with four laps to go, I knew that I couldn’t afford to just coast. The only way that I could get any sort of speed down Conrod [Straight] was to keep as much corner speed as possible.”
“At Forest Elbow, my tyres didn’t like what I was doing and I clipped the wall. The hit was big enough to bend the front right hand steering and suspension and my race was over. It’s just devastating,” concluded an emotional Jones.
However, all is not lost for the 23 year old. He will lead drive the white OzEmail Falcon in the Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 and starting from 15th position, Jones has every chance of a great result.
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