CAMS DECISION HAS MIXED EFFECT ON SBR
29/11/2004 19:12 (Press Release) -
The Confederation of the Australia Motor Sport’s decision to revise the results of race three from round 12 of the V8 Supercar Championship in Tasmania last weekend has had a mixed effect on Stone Brothers Racing.
The decision to award the race win to David Besnard and the minor placings to Jason Bright and Mark Skaife has seen all the Tasmanian results vary.
The placing of those three drivers means that the originally declared race three winner, Greg Murphy, is relegated back to fourth and he, and the majority of drivers behind him, drop six championship points as a result.
The new race three results do not change the top three overall positions from Tasmania where Russell Ingall won the round in his SBR-prepared Caltex Falcon from Murphy and Steve Richards.
The new results give SBR’s Marcos Ambrose an extra-six point buffer and means that he now only has to finish no more than 15 places behind Murphy or 20 places behind Bright in any of the final round’s three races at Eastern Creek in a fortnight to clinch back to back titles in his Pirtek Falcon.
Eg: Murphy wins the opening Saturday night race and Ambrose finishes no worse than 15th then the title is his. (Before today’s decision Ambrose had to finish within 12 places of Murphy in any of the races to take the title).
The reversal of the decision means that Bright comes back into third place in the championship and Ingall drops back to fourth.
Ingall still has second place in the championship in his sights, but now also has Bright as well as Murphy between himself and that goal.
“The whole thing has been pretty confusing,” said Ingall.
“At the end of the day the points gap between me and Murphy has not changed, but now Bright is back in the mix.
“We are still focused on second place in the championship and we will be going all out at Eastern Creek to achieve that goal.
“We have got nothing to loose.”
Revised Series Points from the Tasmanian Triple Challenge (Top 10 – previous points in brackets):
1. Russell Ingall 164 (170)
2. Greg Murphy 160 (166)
3. Steven Richards 152 (158)
4. Craig Lowndes 148 (154)
5. Cameron McConville 140 (146)
6. Steven Johnson 136 (142)
7. Steve Ellery 134 (140)
8. Jason Bright 126 (90)
9. Marcos Ambrose 126 (126)
10. Rick Kelly 126 (126)
Revised Championship Points (Top 10 - previous points in brackets):
1. Marcos Ambrose 1982 (1982)
2. Greg Murphy 1825 (1831)
3. Jason Bright 1816 (1780)
4. Russell Ingall 1776 (1782)
5. Rick Kelly 1701 (1701)
6. Steven Richards 1661 (1667)
7. Todd Kelly 1513 (1513)
8. Jason Bargwanna 1402 (1406)
9. John Bowe 1400 (1406)
10. Garth Tander 1320 (1320)
* The following is the official release distributed by CAMS explaining why the decision was made to change the race-three results.
CAMS V8 SUPERCAR STEWARDS DECLARE BESNARD WINNER AT SYMMONS PLAINS
CAMS V8 Supercar Stewards today released their findings over the running of Race 3 at Symmons Plains, Tasmania on 14 November 2004, declaring David Besnard the winner, followed by Jason Bright and Mark Skaife.
The Stewards determined that race officials were in fact correct in their assessment of the situation in the first instance, but after considerable pressure from numerous sources in pit lane, they corrected the "perceived error" which resulted in the wrong driver receiving the chequered flag at the conclusion of Race 3.
A Safety Car deployment after Paul Weel's crash started the chain of events leading to the doubt over the result of Race 3.
Race Director Tim Schenken deployed the Safety Car immediately after Weel's crash. Under normal circumstances, the Safety Car waits for the race leader before entering the circuit however Schenken believed that the circumstances of the Weel crash demanded that whole field needed to be slowed and controlled immediately. In this instance, the safety Car picked up the first possible car on the race track, car #51, Greg Murphy. While unusual, this type of Safety Car deployment is in compliance with the rules.
At the time that the Safety Car was deployed, there were four cars running in front of Murphy that had not completed their compulsory pit stop. Murphy and the rest of the field had completed their stops already.
The four cars (#50, Jason Bright, #23, David Besnard, #2, Mark Skaife, and #75, Anthony Tratt) made their stop and exited the pits before the Safety Car completed a lap of the circuit and reached pit lane, thus gaining a lap over the rest of the field in accordance with the rules.
Schenken instructed the Safety Car to wave other cars through and pick up the leader of the group of four, the actual race leader, David Besnard. It was at this time that the majority of teams in pit lane objected.
As a result of the objections, senior officials experienced doubts over the accuracy of the timing information and took steps to adjust what appeared to be a timing anomaly based on what teams were saying.
The stewards' investigation has since shown that the timing information was correct and that David Besnard was the race leader during the Safety Car period.
The results were established by the Stewards at the conclusion of lap 41 in accordance with the FIA procedures thus awarding car #23, David Besnard, the victory.
The CAMS Stewards made their findings after reviewing detailed timing printouts, Network 10 footage and in-car footage to ascertain what occurred at the time of the deployment of the Safety Car in Race 3 following the crash of Paul Weel.
Release Date: 21/11/2004
Stone Brothers Racing
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