R13 S'OUT – Ambrose wins qualifying crown; Skaife crashes
30/11/2002 14:16 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Marcos Ambrose confirmed his status as the fastest gun in the V8 Supercar series, winning a season record-equalling fifth shootout for pole at Sandown Raceway.
With the final crack at top spot, Ambrose clocked a one-minute 11.06sec lap to nudge Craig Lowndes from pole position for this afternoon’s first 150km race.
Lowndes and Ambrose’s teammate David Besnard form a rare Ford trifecta at the front of the grid.
Series champion Mark Skaife spectacularly crashed out of pole contention; an uncharacteristic mistake at Dandenong Road leaving his Holden Racing Team Commodore and pride bruised.
“I was a bit committed at the fast left and when I ran wide I just couldn’t get on the brake early enough,” Skaife said. "It was a bad mistake.”
Coming out after Skaife, Ambrose had the benefit of two warm-up laps.
“You can always do more,” he said, “but without taking too many risks that was about as good as we could do today.”
Greg Murphy will start from fourth, nine positions ahead of his rival for the vice-championship, Jason Bright. Bright’s untidy lap was the 13th fastest.
Steven Ellery was an impressive sixth and will line up alongside Steven Richards on the third row.
Lansvale Racing Team’s Cameron McConville was disappointed with his time but still managed to climb four positions to seventh.
"[But] it was a slippery track today," he said, "and we performed well."
Last year’s Sandown winner, Todd Kelly was eighth ahead of Russell Ingall and Max Wilson. Jason Richards claimed one of Team Kiwi Racing’s best grid positions, finishing 11th.
Today’s race was due to start at 2pm local time.
Top 15 Shootout results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?01/12/2002.SAN.Q7
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