WPS race against time to repair Besnard car
7/4/2005 15:34 (Press Release) -
The Wright Patton Shakespeare-supported WPS Racing V8 Supercar team was today racing against the clock to repair one of two cars damaged during the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne last weekend.
WPS Racing engineers will be burning the midnight oil in order to have David Besnard’s Car 48 ready for the opening round of the V8 Supercar Championship at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide from March 17-20.
Besnard, who damaged his car while trying to avoid an incident involving a car he was trailing, is confident he can put the crash of the previous outing behind him and concentrate his efforts on the opening round on the streets of Adelaide.
“The car will be ready to go no doubt,” said Besnard.
“We intended to go to Melbourne and play a conservative game to bring the car home safely, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. It’s the worst case scenario in the wet, and another driver bounced off the wall in front of me, I had nowhere to go.”
The 28-year-old said Adelaide is one of his favourite circuits, rating it alongside the Lexmark Indy 300 at Surfers Paradise, and while he didn’t expect to ‘lap the field’ was confident of a solid result in the ‘city of churches’.
“The car is running better than ever and it was great straight off the truck in Melbourne,” he said.
“It was brilliant from the first test day and we were able to learn a lot about it in the lead-up to the opening round.”
Fellow WPS pilot, Craig Baird, is currently in New Zealand competing in the Porsche GT3 Cup of which he is the current series leader, but will return to South Australia to race the first round of the V8 Supercar Championships.
The Kiwi, who came on board with WPS Racing this year, is leading the Porsche series abroad and can win the series this weekend with one round still remaining. If he doesn’t win the GT3 Cup this weekend, he may miss the final round which will coincide with round two of the V8 Supercar Championships at Pukekohe in his native New Zealand.
“It’s important that I sew this series up over here, because the final round will coincide with a round of the V8 Supercars,” said Baird, from New Zealand.
“The Porsche Cup has been great preparation for the V8s and I can’t wait for Adelaide, it’s a great old style street circuit with concrete barriers, like the Surfers Paradise track.”
Baird said he was happy with the way the Falcon handled in wet conditions at Melbourne, citing it as a ‘testing ground’ in the lead up to the Clipsal 500.
The Clipsal 500 is the first of 13 Championship rounds in the V8 Supercar series, including an inaugural round at Shanghai, China from June 11-12.
Release Date: 11/03/2005
WPS Racing
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