New colours and new enthusiasm for Murphy
17/3/2005 17:27 (Press Release) -
A successful test session at Phillip Island with his new team, Super Cheap Auto Racing, has reinforced Greg Murphy’s belief he can make a legitimate challenge for the 2005 championship.
Murphy, the defending Bathurst 1000 champion who since last year has switched to the new-look squad from fellow Holden team Kmart Racing, was consistently quick as he and teammate Paul Weel rolled out their Commodore VZ race cars in sweltering temperatures.
By mid-afternoon the expected top temperature of 34 degrees had been reached, translating into a track temperature of around 47 degrees.
“It felt very comfortable from the word go,” Murphy said. “It was quick on good tyres and although the heat started to slow us down a bit as the oil in the track came to the surface, we’ve done enough to know we’ve got a couple of good, fast cars under us.
“We’re looking for the Grand Prix to give us a good indication of where we are at. We know we’re travelling well ourselves at this point, we’ll wait to see how everyone else is doing.
“But I came to this team looking to build a championship challenge and everything we’ve done so far tells me I’ve got the right team and the right car to do that.”
Teammate Weel was similarly upbeat after yesterday’s session. “It’s been a good opportunity just to try a few different combinations of things, especially because both Murph and I have new engineers,” he said.
“It’s a chance for Steve (Henderson, Murphy’s engineer) and Bryce (Seales, Weel’s engineer) to have a play around with a few things and bring some fresh ideas to the team.”
Weel travelled to England in January to participate in the same intensive race driving course undertaken last year by fellow Holden driver Paul Dumbrell.
“He (Dumbrell) made big improvements last year, including qualifying third at Bathurst, so I went there to see what I could do, especially to improve my qualifying,” Weel said.
“I picked up some good stuff which I can already see helping me after only one day in the car. I’m pretty excited about this season because I think with this training and with Murph alongside me, I can really get the best out of the car and myself.”
Team manager John Panozzo said he was “extremely happy” with Monday’s test session.
“We had a big program to get through and we didn’t get it all done, but everything we did was effective and we took the time to make sure it was 100 per cent right,” he said.
“The cars were responsive to changes and we were just working through what affects what, and continuing to build communication between drivers, engineers and crew members.
“Having such a warm day was a bit of a rarity for Phillip Island and we don’t expect to have too many days like that, but we still managed to gain a fair bit of useful data.”
Release Date: 01/03/2005
Super Cheap Auto Racing - PWR
|
|
