DAY OF ELATION AND FRUSTRATION FOR SBR
29/11/2004 18:51 (Press Release) -
It was a day of elation and frustration for Stone Brothers Racing in the Tasmanian Triple Challenge at the Symmons Plains Raceway near Launceston today.
Caltex Falcon driver Russell Ingall provided the biggest high when he won the round after a couple of days of shear determination and solid pace.
Pirtek Falcon driver Marcos Ambrose was the focus of the frustration when his engine expired in the third and final race of the weekend, basically ending his hopes of wrapping up back-to-back V8 Supercar titles at a track just 30km from where he grew up.
All Ambrose really needed to do was finish with a reasonable result to clinch the crown, but there were signs from the warm-up lap that there were problems with his engine and in the end he only completed 24 laps of the 42-lap contest.
Ambrose now leads the championship with 1982 points from Greg Murphy (1831), Ingall (1782), Jason Bright (1780) and Steve Richards (1701) with 192 points up for grabs over three races at Eastern Creek in Sydney on December 3-5.
Ingall was elated to clinch his first outright win of the season and dramatically boost his chances of finishing second in the championship and of giving SBR a 1-2 championship result.
Ingall has only failed to score a season win twice before since his entry into the V8 Supercar ranks in 1996 – in those years he did finish second in the Queensland 500 and at Bathurst (2002) and second at Eastern Creek (2000).
Ingall finished fifth in this morning’s opening race and then finished second behind Greg Murphy in race two, which was plagued by incidents and a mix-up with the safety car for several laps.
At the end of the day he had scored 170 points to beat Murphy (166) and Steve Richards (158) outright.
Ingall had an interesting experience on lap 27 in race three when Rick Kelly’s car basically stopped in front of him half way through the hairpin and he had no option but to tap him from behind.
It was later cleared by Kelly’s team that he had had an engine problem at that point of the track and that Ingall was in the clear of any driving offence.
“It is important to get a win every season and I am glad we got this one today,” said Ingall.
“We have been so close on several occasions this year and it is a great reward for the Caltex crew to clinch this today.
“We might not be able to catch Marcos, but we certainly can finish second in the championship and that’s now our goal.
“Murph (Murphy) has never had great results at Eastern Creek, so we will have to see how things pan out.
“We were pretty quick the last time we were there so hopefully we can carry that through to the final round.”
Ambrose won the opening race of the day after having a great start and racing away.
The victory set-up what looked to be a formality of him clinching the title today, but his engine had other ideas.
“I really felt we had a problem on the warm-up lap and things certainly didn’t get any better,” said Ambrose.
“The boys threw everything at it back in the garage, but at the end of the day we would have fallen half a lap short of the require 75% of race distance needed to be declared a race finisher. So we just put it away.
“It would have been great to clinch the title here in front of my home crowd, but it was not to be.
“We have had a fantastic reliability run for the past three years. This is a tough sport of man verses machine and sometimes the machines let you down.
“We just need to refocus now and ensure we do the job required at Eastern Creek.
“We still finished ninth overall for the day despite not finishing the third race. It would have been great to get at least some points from race three, but that’s the way it goes.
“My Congratulations go to everyone who was involved in putting this event together and it was nice to at least win a race in my first meeting at Symmons Plains.”
The 13th and final round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series will be held at Eastern Creek in Sydney on December 3-5.
RACE 2 RESULTS
1: Marcos Ambrose (Ford) – 42 Laps
2: Rick Kelly (Holden)
3: Todd Kelly (Holden)
4: Greg Murphy (Holden)
5: Russell Ingall (Ford)
6: Craig Lowndes (Ford)
7: Cameron McConville (Holden)
8: Steve Ellery (Ford)
9: Brad Jones (Ford)
10: Steve Johnson (Ford)
11: Jason Bargwanna (Ford)
12: Warren Luff (Ford)
13: Steve Richards (Holden)
14: John Bowe (Ford)
15: Max Wilson (Ford)
16: Simon Wills (Holden)
17: Mark Winterbottom (Ford)
18: Dale Brede (Holden)
19: Glenn Seton (Ford)
20: Alex Davison (Holden)
21: Paul Radisich (Ford)
22: Owen Kelly (Ford)
23: Paul Dumbrell (Holden)
24: Jason Bright (Holden)
25: Jason Richards (Holden) – 41 Laps
26: Anthony Tratt (Holden)
27: Paul Weel (Holden)
28: Garth Tander (Holden)
29: David Besnard (Ford) – 38 Laps
30: Paul Morris (Holden) – 36 Laps
DNF: Mark Skaife (Holden) – 33 Laps
DNF: Craig Baird (Holden) – 21 Laps
RACE 3 RESULTS
1: Greg Murphy (Holden) – 42 Laps
2: Russell Ingall (Ford)
3: Steve Richards (Holden)
4: Cameron McConville (Holden)
5: Steve Johnson (Ford)
6: Warren Luff (Ford)
7: Steve Ellery (Ford)
8: Mark Winterbottom (Ford)
9: Simon Wills (Holden)
10: Craig Lowndes (Ford)
11: Paul Radisich (Ford)
12: Max Wilson (Ford)
13: John Bowe (Ford)
14: Glenn Seton (Ford)
15: Owen Kelly (Ford)
16: Paul Morris (Holden)
17: Jason Richards (Holden)
18: David Besnard (Ford)
19: Jason Bargwanna (Ford)
20: Jason Bright (Holden)
21: Mark Skaife (Holden)
22: Paul Dumbrell (Holden)
23: Brad Jones (Ford) – 41 Laps
24: Anthony Tratt (Holden)
25: Dale Brede (Holden)
DNF: Rick Kelly (Holden) – 26 Laps
DNF: Marc os Ambrose (Ford) – 24 Laps
DNF: Alex Davison (Holden) – 23 Laps
DNF: Todd Kelly (Holden) – 9 Laps
DNF: Paul Weel (Holden) – 9 Laps
DNF: Garth Tander (Holden)
TASMANIAN TRIPLE CHALLENGE POINTS
1: Russell Ingall (Ford) 170
2: Greg Murphy (Holden) 166
3: Steve Richards (Holden) 158
4: Craig Lowndes (Ford) 154
5: Cameron McConville (Holden) 146
6: Steve Johnson (Ford) 142
7: Steve Ellery (Ford) 140
8: Warren Luff (Ford) 130
9: Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 126
10: Rick Kelly (Holden) 126
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS (After Round 12)
1: Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 1982
2: Greg Murphy (Holden) 1831
3: Russell Ingall (Ford) 1782
4: Jason Bright (Holden) 1780
5: Rick Kelly (Holden) 1701
6: Steven Richards (Holden) 1667
7: Todd Kelly (Holden) 1513
8: John Bowe (Ford) 1406
8: Jason Bargwanna (Ford) 1406
10: Garth Tander (Holden) 1320
11: Steven Johnson (Ford) 1280
12: Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 1164
13: Cameron McConville (Holden) 1156
14: Paul Weel (Holden) 1146
15: Brad Jones (Ford) 1143
16: Glen Seton (Ford) 1143
17: Jason Richards (Holden) 1115
18: Mark Skaife (Holden) 1114
19: Craig Lowndes (Ford) 1066
20: Warren Luff (Ford) 1055
21: Paul Radisich (Ford) 1020
22: Paul Morris (Holden) 997
23: Anthony Tratt (Holden) 987
24: Paul Dumbrell (Holden) 952
25: Steve Ellery (Ford) 943
26: Simon Wills (Holden) 893
27: Craig Baird (Holden) 859
28: Tony Longhurst (Holden) 856
29: Max Wilson (Ford) 755
30: David Besnard (Ford) 648
Release Date: 14/11/2004
Stone Brothers Racing
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