R4S RACE 1 - Win to Ingall in Darwin race one chaos
12/5/2001 23:24 (Press Releases) -
Russell Ingall survived some opening lap drama to convert his front row qualifying effort into his first Shell Championship Series race win since July last year in the first of three races at Darwin's Hidden Valley circuit.
"I had a bit of a mongrel year last year so it's nice to taste a win again. Darwin has been kind to us in the past and, fingers crossed, this shows we are on the right track," said Ingall.
The 9,500 Territorians at the track saw V8 Supercar rookie, Marcos Ambrose finish second in the Pirtek Falcon while popular Ford driver, Mark Larkham recorded his best result of the year with third.
"It's taken us a while to recover after the off season business with finding a new sponsor for the team. The last couple of races we have had the speed but haven't been able to complete them," said Larkham. "You should expect more from us now, we hope we can make this a turning point."
Greg Murphy surrendered a certain podium finish when he drove off the track, but recovered enough to finish fourth.
Ingall won the 17-lap race after inheriting the lead on the second lap when polesitter, Mark Skaife was handed a stop-go penalty for jumping the start. Skaife rejoined in 27th before clambering his way to 14th by race end.
"It's hard to know what would have happened if Skaife had still been up there. The car stayed well balanced throughout the race but I think we will have to be a bit quicker again tomorrow," said Ingall.
Behind those two, chaos was influencing the result as soon as the first turn of the first lap.
An optimistic dive up the inside by Glenn Seton saw him join Ambrose, John Bowe and Garth Tander in an impossible four abreast effort to negotiate the first turn.
Ambrose survived, but Tander's race was ended and Seton and Bowe were consigned to a rear of the field battle for points after all three fell off the track and sustained damage.
"There were four cars trying to go into space for about a car and a half," said Ambrose. "I had no way out so I just tried to hold the wheel straight and I managed to get through."
This allowed Series leader, Jason Bright, as well as Paul Radisich and Craig Lowndes to move forward from their uncharacteristically low qualifying positions. But Lowndes went backwards again after he was given a stop-go penalty on lap 11 for ramming Larry Perkins off the track in a battle for seventh place. He eventually finished eleventh.
David Besnard has made giant strides this weekend. After having to come through pre-qualifying just to be allowed to race, he set the tenth fastest qualifying time and then managed to hold onto seventh place during the race mayhem.
The 32-car field will line up again tomorrow for two 35-lap races to decide the overall winner of the round. With only ten tyres per car allocated for all qualifying and race sessions, rubber conservation will have an influence by tomorrow afternoon according to Larkham.
"They will be a very big issue tomorrow," he said. "Anyone who flatspots even one tyre will suffer."
**RACE ONE - TOP TEN**
1st RUSSELL INGALL (Castrol Perkins Racing) - VX Commodore
2nd MARCOS AMBROSE (Pirtek Racing) - AU Falcon
3rd MARK LARKHAM (ICS Team Smartcar) - AU Falcon
4th GREG MURPHY (K-Mart Racing) - VX Commodore
5th JASON BRIGHT (Holden Racing Team) - VX Commodore
6th PAUL RADISICH (Shell Helix Racing) - AU Falcon
7th DAVID BESNARD (Caltex Havoline Racing) - AU Falcon
8th STEVEN ELLERY (Super Cheap Auto Racing) - AU Falcon
9th STEVEN RICHARDS (Ford-Tickford Racing) - AU Falcon
10th PAUL MORRIS (Big Kev Racing) - VT Commodore
For complete race results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?13/05/2001.HIDV
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