R5 RACES – Hat trick for Ambrose
9/6/2003 12:11 (Press Release) -
Marcos Ambrose has completed a rare hat trick for Ford, claiming a third round win a row in his Pirtek Falcon after a dramatic day of racing in Perth.
The form driver in the series, Ambrose has now jumped up the championship order and is closing in on series leader Jason Bright and Steven Richards in second.
Ambrose sprinted away at the start of the final race for the weekend, pole-sitter Mark Skaife getting away slowly and dropping to fourth. Once he rejoined the track at the front of the drivers who made their compulsory pit stops he was able to open up a comfortable lead which was reduced three times by safety car periods.
The final race almost finished under the safety car when Steve Ellery rolled his Supercheap Auto Falcon in the closing laps, but race officials decided to restart the race for one last lap under racing conditions.
Ambrose was able to hold onto his lead during that final lap to claim victory in front of 40,000 spectators.
“We knew it was going to be tough today, to be honest I was surprised they didn’t put up a bigger show,” Ambrose said. “Can you believe the car we had today compared to last year?
“The Stone Brothers Racing crew has been fantastic, and the car at the end was a real weapon. We’ve pretty much unlocked the code to the BA, we are developing on the go and we are getting a better grip on the car.
“You couldn’t ask for a better run, and with a bit of luck it could have been five in a row too!”
The last time a Ford driver won three races in a row was Glenn Seton way back in 1993, and Ambrose would now like to challenge Mark Skaife’s five in a row at the start of last year.
“You can’t expect to win every race, we are under no illusions," he said, "but we’ve had good results in Darwin so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Second overall for the round was Kmart Commodore driver Greg Murphy, the Kiwi driver enjoying better fortunes after a troubled weekend at Winton two weeks ago.
Murphy scored pole and won yesterday’s race, but said today he just didn’t have enough speed.
“We weren’t able to make our car a good race car unfortunately,” Murphy said. “It was a bit of guess work really, but we just didn’t have the pace of Marcos and Mark, and we just didn’t look after our tyres well enough.
“We came here this weekend to get some points and move forward in the championship, and we’ve certainly done that.”
Steven Richards brought his Castrol Perkins Commodore home in third spot, but not after a bit of a scare in the opening laps of the final race. Richards said he just ran a little deep into turn one and got onto the dirty part of the track losing six spots.
“You’ve just got to put your head down when that happens,” Richards said. “You can’t afford to let it get you down because it is how you deal with the bad ones that can win you a championship – not the good ones.”
After dominating the first race today (race 2 of 3 for the weekend), Mark Skaife had a shocker in the final. He was running fourth when trying to pass Rodney Forbes who spun and slammed into the side of the reigning champion’s Commodore, pushing a guard onto a tyre.
Eventually the tyre deflated, sending Skaife into the pits and down to 26th on the track after running fourth. Skaife finished in eighth overall, and was furious with Forbes who he said could have cost him a crack at his sixth title.
Series leader Jason Bright had a tough weekend finishing no better than 10th all weekend but holding onto his lead in the series.
Race one results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?08/06/2003.BARB.R4
Race two results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?08/06/2003.BARB.R7
Race three results:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?08/06/2003.BARB.R10
V8 Supercar Championship Series standings:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?08/06/2003.BARB.V8S.S
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