R5 QUAL – Bright's bent on pole after qualifying win
7/6/2002 18:12 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Jason Bright’s belated championship challenge continued in Canberra today, claiming provisional pole position ahead of tomorrow morning’s top fifteen shootout.
For once, it was Bright who had all the luck, and not teammate Mark Skaife.
He took a hit on his first run, bending his suspension, but the Holden Racing Team deputy still managed to “throw” his bruised Commodore around the tricky 3.9km course to clock the fastest lap of the session – a one-minute 43.76min flier.
Skaife, fastest in morning practice, finished third, behind Ford’s Marcos Ambrose.
Still, the championship leader looks ominous. He only used one set of tyres today, electing to shakedown his Commodore rather than launch an all-out attack on the timesheets.
Ambrose was just 0.17sec behind Bright.
"Our car is very strong and although I would have liked to have been the fastest today, it's tomorrow that really counts," Ambrose said.
Craig Lowndes is well placed in fourth, ahead of Garth Tander, who snuck into tomorrow’s shootout for pole from the slower qualifying group.
Max Wilson and Neil Crompton also pushed into the top fifteen from the slower group, displacing Paul Radisich, Rick Kelly and Tony Longhurst from the shootout.
Russell Ingall, driving in Canberra for the final time in a Commodore according to some sections of the media, qualified sixth.
Defending Canberra 400 winner Steven Johnson, who earlier gave federal opposition leader Simon Crean the ride of his life, was seventh.
"I’m happy with the way things went today, particularly with the way the car was running," Johnson said.
Both TWR Kmart Commodores qualified for the shootout, Greg Murphy in eighth and Todd Kelly eleventh. Steven Richards and David Besnard will join their teammates in the pole run-off, also.
Glenn Seton made a welcome return to the fastest fliers club, qualifying 14th, ahead of fellow Ford veteran John Bowe.
The shootout is scheduled for 11:10am tomorrow morning, before the opening 25-lap encounter just before 3pm.
Qualifying results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?09/06/2002.CANB.Q2
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