R7S QUAL - Skaife back on top
14/7/2001 20:42 (Press Release) -
The man they dub the ‘Qualifying King’, Mark Skaife, reasserted himself on the V8 Supercar field with a typically fast hot lap to clinch pole position in the Top Ten Shootout at Victoria’s Calder Park Raceway today.
It is the third pole from seven rounds for the defending Shell Series champion, who piloted his Holden Racing Team Commodore around the 2.28km circuit in a time of 56.22sec.
After following a Ford all day in the last round in Perth, Skaife is happy to be back in the number one spot at his team’s test circuit, and is looking to extend his championship lead in tomorrow’s races.
"The car went really well today," he said. "In Perth, the Shell Fords were the cars to beat, but we still managed to stay pretty close and pick up some valuable points.
“This is not the most technical track. If you can get to the braking point ridiculously late and make it through the corners, you will record a good lap and I managed that today.
“The Shell Fords will be a threat tomorrow because they get their power down well and have good straight line speed."
Skaife will be joined on the front row by the leading Ford driver in the field, Shell Helix Racing’s Steven Johnson, who has recovered from the flu which dogged him in Perth.
"I feel like a new man compared to Perth," he said. "The car has a great set-up and the front row is where you want to be in these sprint races, so we will be looking for the team’s third win on the trot, and Ford’s fourth in a row tomorrow."
Paul Morris duplicated his career-best qualifying result from the last round in Perth, putting his Big Kev Commodore on the third grid spot. Having little data for the car at this circuit, he was cautious about his chances in the race.
"Who knows how we will go, it will be a bit of a mystery tour," said Morris. “The team has made a lot of progress with the car so we will see."
Todd Kelly was fastest in provisional qualifying, but continued a 2001 trend where no provisional pole-sitter has been able to hang on to the top spot in the cut-throat one lap run-off, settling in fourth place.
"I’ll have to remember not to put it on provisional pole next time," he said. “The car has just been fantastic and I was just a little cautious in the shootout, wary of getting a brake lock-up and falling back to tenth."
Marcos Ambrose was fifth fastest in the Pirtek Falcon, bouncing back from a miserable time in Perth to rediscover his strong qualifying form.
"Let’s just forget about Perth will we," he said. "I was probably a bit too cautious as it is my first time racing here, but I am pretty happy with fifth."
Mark Larkham seems to revel in adversity. It was here last year that the popular Queensland Ford driver came back after a fiery smash at Oran Park and promptly recorded a career-first race win.
Today, just days after hearing he had lost his second major sponsor in twelve months, he produced a cracking 55.89s lap in provisional qualifying to come in to the shootout in second place. He could not quite reproduce that in the run-off and will start sixth.
Castrol Holden’s Russell Ingall was seventh and Craig Lowndes was next in the Gibson Ford, with the second HRT car of Jason Bright and Kelly’s K-mart Racing team-mate, Greg Murphy, rounding out the top ten.
Winner of the last round in Perth, Paul Radisich, was given a fair chance of repeating that effort this weekend and was on-track when he set the fastest practice time of the morning in his Shell Helix Falcon.
But 20-minutes into the 25-minute provisional qualifying session, with ‘the Rat’ in tenth place on the timesheets and looking to improve his time, rookie Ford driver Dean Canto jammed his throttle and slid out of control into the right side of Radisich’s car.
With broken front suspension and considerable panel damage, Radisich watched helplessly as he bumped from the top ten shootout and will start from twelfth in tomorrow’s races.
Glenn Seton’s record of qualifying inside the top five at every round this year evaporated as the Tickford-Ford racer battled to the 20th fastest time.
The first of the three 20-minute sprint races for the 32-car grid is scheduled to start at 11:30am tomorrow, with race two at 11.30am tomorrow and race three at 3.30pm.
**TOP TEN SHOOTOUT**
1st MARK SKAIFE (Holden Racing Team) – VX Commodore [0:56.2277min]
2nd STEVEN JOHNSON (Shell Helix Racing) – AU Falcon [0:56.2902]
3rd PAUL MORRIS (Big Kev Racer) – VT Commodore [0:56.4524]
4th TODD KELLY (K-Mart Racing Team) – VX Commodore [0:56.4689]
5th MARCOS AMBROSE (Pirtek Racing) – AU Falcon [0:56.5185]
6th MARK LARKHAM (Larkham Motorsport) – AU Falcon [0:56.5663]
7th RUSSELL INGALL (Castrol Perkins Racing) – VX Commodore [0:56.6394]
8th CRAIG LOWNDES (Gibson Motorsport) – AU Falcon [0:56.7190]
9th JASON BRIGHT (Holden Racing Team) – VX Commodore [0:56.7829]
10th GREG MURPHY (K-mart Racing Team) – VX Commodore [0:57.2326]
For complete practice/qualifying results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?15/07/2001.CALD
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