Incident puts Morris out of race two at Albert Park
7/4/2005 14:30 (Press Release) -
A broken steering arm after contact with another vehicle put Sirromet Wines Holden Commodore driver Paul Morris out of today's second race of the Qantas V8 Supercar series at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix meeting.
Morris, driving a new VZ Commodore, started the 19-lap race on the Albert Park track from 26th position on the grid. He charged up to 18th before several cars crashed on the opening lap and the race went into a Safety Car period.
When racing resumed on lap five the Autobahn Commodore of Alex Davison made contact with the right-front of Morris' car at a right-hand corner. The steering arm was broken on the Sirromet Wines Holden and both cars went off the track into a gravel trap and took no further part in the race.
The race started on a damp track, which dried out as the event wore on. BOC Ford Falcon team-mates John Bowe and Brad Jones finished one-two after opting for 'slick' dry-weather tyres.
The V8 Supercar event at Albert Park will be completed with another race tomorrow over 10 laps, before the Formula One grand prix. The V8 Supercar Championship starts with the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide from March 17-20.
PAUL MORRIS QUOTES: "A few corners after the restart I pulled up alongside (Craig) Baird. Another car came past me at 'warp' speed and locked up – it hit my right-front wheel and broke the steering arm so that was the end of my day. It's disappointing because we wanted to go the full race distance and give the new car a good hit-out for Adelaide. I passed a few cars on the first lap before the Safety Car came out. We got some new brake rotors down from the Gold Coast and put them on the car before the race – unfortunately I didn't get enough track time to know if they've fixed the (brake) problems we had on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully we can go the distance in the last race here tomorrow."
Release Date: 05/03/2005
Sirromet - Life, Style, Wine (PMM)
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