R13S QUAL - Tom's men come marching home
30/11/2001 18:16 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Tom Walkinshaw’s galaxy of V8 Superstars only had themselves to contend with, largely, during qualifying for the V8 Ultimate at Sandown Raceway this afternoon, with 22-year-old tyro Todd Kelly upstaging the lot to claim provisional pole.
The Victorian scorched around Sandown’s challenging layout in his K-Mart Racing Commodore to grab top spot ahead of tomorrow morning’s Top Fifteen Shootout, recording a 1:11.56min lap.
Kelly is in good company, with the entire TWR Australia squad sitting ominously inside the top five.
Teammate and last-round winner Greg Murphy, who qualified third, was full of praise for the young-gun.
"Todd did an awesome job today and all credit to him,” Murphy said. “We’ll look to get both K-mart cars on the podium on Sunday.”
Ford’s Craig Lowndes was the only driver to crash the TWR party, with a last-gasp flier elevating him to second. The valiant attempt left Lowndes just .06sec shy of Kelly’s time.
"The time we spent at Calder during the week (for testing) was invaluable as we made some real progress with the set-up of the car," Lowndes explained.
“Clearly that’s paid off here today as the car felt fantastic...it’s certainly nice to be at the top of the time sheets."
The Holden Racing Team Commodores dominated this morning’s two practice sessions but couldn’t match their K-Mart stable-mates during qualifying. Shell Series champion-elect Mark Skaife was fourth, ahead of Jason Bright.
Skaife promised to throw caution to the wind this weekend in celebration of his fourth title, but typically is not yet comfortable with his race package.
"I’m not really having fun yet,” he said. “There are some changes we would like to make to the car and then hopefully we can get stuck into the fun stuff on the weekend."
Meanwhile, Bright cheekily revelled in his team’s efforts: "We just have to get Lowndesy out of the way and we will be on track for a full HRT podium!
"The TWR cars are working very well at the moment and it is a pleasure to be behind the wheel of it.”
Defending Sandown winner Paul Radisich found himself in the slower 50 percent qualifying session after problems in practice, but leapt into tomorrow’s shootout with the sixth-fastest time.
Steven Richards, who is racing for the final time in Ford Tickford Racing colours this weekend, CAT racer Simon Wills and Big Kev’s Paul Morris all qualified for the shootout from the slower qualifying session, also.
Larry Perkins again out-paced his teammate, Russell Ingall, in qualifying, though both are on the provisional fourth row.
Notably, the year’s best qualifier, Marcos Ambrose, is in tenth, while Glenn Seton looks unlikely to end his win-less drought from fifteenth.
Steven Johnson, Paul Weel, Mark Larkham and both Valvoline-Cummins Commodores of Garth Tander and Jason Bargwanna all qualified outside the top fifteen.
Johnson complained of a severe lack of grip: “Our corner speeds are slow and there's no balance, it just wasn't very good today.”
He can take heart in knowing today’s session was one of the season’s closest, with 23 drivers within a second of Kelly.
Just 450km of racing remain in the 2001 Shell Championship Series, with the first 150km race to be held tomorrow afternoon.
>> QUALIFYING - TOP FIFTEEN >>
1st TODD KELLY (K-Mart Racing Team) - VX Commodore [1:11.5651min]
2nd CRAIG LOWNDES (Gibson Motorsport) - AU Falcon [1:11.6283]
3rd GREG MURPHY (K-Mart Racing Team) - VX Commodore [1:11.6793]
4th MARK SKAIFE (Holden Racing Team) - VX Commodore [1:11.7271]
5th JASON BRIGHT (Holden Racing Team) - VX Commodore [1:11.7981]
6th PAUL RADISICH (Shell Helix Racing) - AU Falcon [1:11.9300]
7th LARRY PERKINS (Perkins Motorsport) - VX Commodore [1:11.9606]
8th RUSSELL INGALL (Perkins Motorsport) - VX Commodore [1:11.9809]
9th STEVEN RICHARDS (Ford Tickford Racing) - AU Falcon [1:12.0715]
10th MARCOS AMBROSE (Pirtek Racing) - AU Falcon [1:12.1007]
11th DAVID BESNARD (Caltex Havoline Race Team) - AU Falcon [1:12.1141]
12th SIMON WILLS (CAT Racing) - AU Falcon [1:12.2800]
13th PAUL MORRIS (Big Kev Racer) - VX Commodore [1:12.2996]
14th STEVEN ELLERY (Super Cheap Auto Racing) - AU Falcon [1:12.3360]
15th GLENN SETON (Ford Tickford Racing) - AU Falcon [1:12.3401]
For complete practice/qualifying results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?02/12/2001.SAN
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