Stone Brothers Racing’s Marcos Ambrose notched his second clean sweep of the opening round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series in as many years when he won the second leg of the Clipsal 500 on the streets of Adelaide today.
13/4/2005 18:46 (Press Release) -
Ford Performance Racing (FPR) driver Jason Bright finished
11th in today's action packed second leg of the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. Ford
Credit FPV Falcon driver Greg Ritter retired from the race on the 54th lap (out
of 78) following an accident.
Bright raced his CAT FPR Falcon from 19th on the grid to the top ten by his
first compulsory pit stop for tyres on lap 9 under yellow flag conditions. He
then drove a consistently paced stint despite gaining significant rear damage
to his car when trying to avoid accidents ahead of him. The 32 year old's
consistency paid off, making it to 6th by the time he made his compulsory fuel
stop on lap 51. Bright returned to the pits on lap 55 for four new tyres,
starting his determined sprint from 19th position to 11th, fractionally missing
out on a top ten result.
Ritter started the race strongly from the rear of the field and made up two
positions by the time he pitted on lap 9, (directly after his team mate under
yellow flag). The Ford Credit FPV Falcon driver then set out on making his way
through the field, setting impressive lap times as he raced from 28th to 5th
(and past his team mate) by the time he pitted for fuel on lap 47. His strong
run ended abruptly on lap 54, when he crashed heavily at turn 11, with Holden
driver Jason Richards unable to avoid impacting the rear of the FPR Falcon at
high speed, abruptly ending both drivers' races.
The race was won by Ford driver and defending double Champion Marcos Ambrose,
who finished 6.3 seconds ahead of rival Ford driver Craig Lowndes with Holden
driver Mark Skaife third.
Bright has gained 108 points from the two Clipsal 500 races, placing him 10th
in the Championship standings with 12 rounds remaining in the 2005 Australian
V8 Supercar Championship Series. The next round will be held at Auckland's
Pukekohe Raceway (NZ) from April 15-17.
#6 Jason Bright - "It was a long and hot race - the temperature was much warmer
than yesterday and we took a different direction in the set up for the race,
which with the benefit of hindsight probably wasn't the best way to go. We
salvaged quite a bit just by making a good call with tyres towards the end of
the race. We are in a tough situation as we are trying to learn the most that
we can about the car without the benefit of warm-ups to try the changes that we
make. We got caught in some of the carnage as well and I lost a heap of time
with a couple of incidents. The fact that we could get anywhere near the top
ten given how far down we were proves that the car has got some good speed."
#5 Greg Ritter - "I was pushing hard from the start of the race and it was all
going very well. By the mid stages of the race the car was very fast, but I
used up most of the tyres and the car started to understeer a lot. I don't know
if there was something on the circuit at turn 11 but the car ran wide on the
entry and exit to the corner and I clipped the barrier. Jason Richards was left
with no where to go behind me. We made good improvements with the car and we
have learned a lot to take us to New Zealand."
FPR Chief Engineer Phil Keed - "19th and 11th in the first two races of the
Championship is a start and has earned Jason points while enabling us to learn
more about the car. It is always difficult working out which is the best
direction to go with a new driver adapting to a different car. It was
unfortunate that Greg's car was so damaged after his unfortunate incident
considering the progress that he was making. We'll be working solidly to have
both cars ready for New Zealand."
FPR returns to its Campbellfield home base to continue development work on the
two FPR Falcons before they are shipped to New Zealand for the second round of
the series, the Placemakers V8 Supercar International, taking place at
Auckland's Pukekohe Raceway from April 15-17.
The 2005 Clipsal 500 was another major success, with a total of 255,600
spectators attending over the four days, with a Sunday record crowd total of
82,600 people.
Release Date: 20/03/2005
Ford Performance Racing
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