R5 S'OUT – Lowndes the best, Skaife just human
8/6/2002 13:29 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Craig Lowndes is in the box seat to reign on former teammate Mark Skaife’s championship parade after winning pole position for this weekend’s Stegbar Canberra 400.
On the unforgiving streets of the national capital the safest place to be is on pole. Lowndes snared the prized spot with a tidy one-minute 44.4sec hot lap in this morning’s top fifteen shootout.
The best news from Lowndes’ perspective – and the championship’s – is that Skaife won’t lead into the first corner, a position he rarely loses from.
He’s back in sixth, his worst qualifying performance of the year, after a cautious shootout lap. The V8 King is human, after all.
There’s still a Holden Racing Team Commodore on the front row, though, with Jason Bright qualifying second.
Greg Murphy clocked the third fastest time, ahead of Steven Richards and David Besnard.
Steven Johnson will defend his Canberra crown from seventh, ahead of Todd Kelly.
Glenn Seton pushed into the top ten to take ninth, while Briggs Motorsport firebrand Max Wilson qualified tenth.
Marcos Ambrose blew it. The shootout specialist slapped a tyre wall in the first chicane and limped home to finish fifteenth.
Garth Tander also lost ground, dropping from fifth to 13th.
The first race, a 100km dash, is at 2:55pm this afternoon.
Top fifteen shootout results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?09/06/2002.CANB.Q6
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