It was a hectic schedule of racing today at the Trading Post Perth Challenge with Races 8 and 9 taking place at Barbagallo, and for Stone Brothers Racing (SBR) there was a disappointing end with the contentious deployment of the safety car.
The day started out well for SBR and with the sun shining and a dry track, it was Lee Holdsworth who qualified the best out of his teammates for Race 8. Starting in 4th he maintained his position until the last few laps, but he just didn’t have the speed to hold off Coulthard and finished in 5th.
Slade had a big improvement in Qualifying from yesterday and went into the 50 lap race in 7th position. Van Gisbergen was behind him in 12th but after a quick start off the grid he jumped up three places into 9th in the opening lap.
Slade dropped back to 8th in the opening lap and then fell back one more place to 9th when teammate van Gisbergen passed him on lap 15. The pair pitted at the same time but a few extra seconds in the pits for van Gisbergen saw Slade gain one place. Slade finished the race in 7th and van Gisbergen in 11th.
There was disappointment in the SBR garage late this afternoon when a controversial placement of the safety car saw Shane, Lee and Tim drop back 11 places. Preliminary Qualifying results had van Gisbergen, Slade and Holdsworth placed 8th, 11th and 14th respectively for the start but when a penalty was given to Russell Ingall, all three moved up one place on the grid.
Shane and Tim blazed off the start gained a number of positions in the first few laps. The IWRIN, SP Tools and Lucky 7 Racing teams all pitted after the safety car was called on track, but it picked-up in front of Lowndes’ Team Vodafone car instead of race leader Whincup. Some drivers were in a position to see the mistake and avoided pitting, but for SBR it meant all three teams would drop towards the back of the field.
While Shane and Lee couldn’t gain back any advantage, Tim Slade showed his car had the speed, and slowly pushed his way back up to 8th position. Engineer Was McDougall believed that under different circumstances “Tim would have been in a fight for the podium today.”
All three drivers still hold strong positions in the top 10 of the V8 Supercars Championship. Lee is currently in 5th, Shane is in 6th and Tim is in 8th.
Lee Holdsworth – Car #4 IRWIN Racing:
“We had excellent pace in this morning’s race, I started 4th and got a good start. I followed Winterbottom and Whincup there for a long time, but I’m still struggling for front grip mid-corner. So every time I get up close to someone I keep scrubbing the front and keep getting more and more understeer. I dropped off the pace a little bit, our fronts went off before our rears and towards the end of the race I was struggling and Coulthard got me in the dying laps.”
“It was still a top five and I’m pretty pleased with that so we’ve ticked a few boxes this weekend. I’ve had a 4th and a 5th and it was my best Qualifying yet with IRWIN Racing.”
“This afternoon, I don’t even know what happened; I’ll have to have a look at the replay to understand what happened. It seemed like an absolute s#*tfight. It’s pretty disappointing really and like I said, when we’re behind cars we get a lot of understeer and that just ruins our race car. Being back that far I was always behind cars, which just made our car a bit of a pig to drive. So pretty disappointing.”
“In the end we came home with a car that isn’t too badly damage and a bundle of Championship points over the whole weekend.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #9 SP Tools Racing:
“The best thing today was, at the start of Race 9, our pace on the hards was awesome. The car was the best it’s been all weekend and we ran up the front with FPR and Triple Eight. We were really fast, but our car seems to junk on softs at the moment. It’s just really slow.”
“In the past we have been really fast on softs but this weekend we have been nowhere and I don’t understand. Today we also got a whole lot of tyre pick up in the last race and I ran really wide. It took a long time to clean off even though I loaded that tyre up again. Then it just got worse and worse and created a lot of understeer for a while. I think it was just tyre pick up, well I hope.”
“I suppose the results this weekend are still all points but the leaders are just getting further away.”
Tim Slade – Car #47 Lucky 7 Racing:
“Eighth position today in Race 9 is nothing to be sneezed at, but everyone puts in their time, money and effort so the safety car mistake was disappointing. Ifs, buts and maybes but I think we definitely had the pace to be up there with the top three guys and that was ruined because people called the wrong shots. I know I wasn’t the only person in that boat and lots of people had their races ruined.”
“On a positive note the car was really fast all weekend and in Qualifying today it was really good. The soft tyres have really been our strength this weekend in the races and we also improved on the hard. The guys did an awesome job all weekend.”
“We improved throughout the weekend and the learning never stops. Every time we go out on the track we are always learning. We have moved forward and the direction we have taken this weekend will hopefully help us in the races coming up.”
Ross Stone – Team Principal:
“I think it is clear that the safety car picked up the 888 car of Lowndes instead of the number one car, so anybody behind him, including Shane, Tim and Lee were all penalised 11 positions. It’s just not good enough. If you make some error they penalise us heavily but in this case they have cost us 11 positions and what’s the redress? There’s nothing and it’s just not good enough.”
Trading Post Perth Challenge Race 8 – RESULTS:
1 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 49:02.2171
2 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 49:05.1374
3 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 49:12.3754
4 14 Lockwood Racing Fabian Coulthard 49:14.9221
5 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 49:18.2907
6 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 49:21.8292
7 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 49:22.4849
8 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 49:24.1211
9 55 The Bottle-O Racing Team David Reynolds 49:27.7227
10 2 Holden Racing Team Garth Tander 49:32.5616
11 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 49:40.7005
Trading Post Perth Challenge Race 9 – RESULTS:
1 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison50:38.3093
2 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 50:38.8040
3 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 50:38.8627
4 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 50:40.2557
5 91 Tekno Autosports Michael Patrizi 50:43.8013
6 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 50:52.7364
7 14 Lockwood Racing Fabian Coulthard 50:55.6089
8 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 50:55.7468
9 34 Fujitsu Racing GRM Michael Caruso 50:59.3298
10 17 Jim Beam Racing Steven Johnson 50:59.7576
18 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 51:19.3497
21 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 51:24.2777
Trading Post Perth Challenge Qualifying Race 8 – RESULTS:
1 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 0:56.3260
2 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 0:56.3289
3 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 0:56.3439
4 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 0:56.4634
5 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 0:56.5183
6 55 The Bottle-O Racing Team David Reynolds 0:56.6063
7 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 0:56.6743
8 14 Lockwood Racing Fabian Coulthard 0:56.7161
9 91 Tekno Autosports Michael Patrizi 0:56.7275
10 19 Tekno Autosports Jonathon Webb 0:56.7346
12 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 0:56.7357
Trading Post Perth Challenge Qualifying Race 9 – RESULTS:
1 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 0:55.2889
2 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 0:55.4225
3 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 0:55.5764
4 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 0:55.5911
5 55 The Bottle-O Racing Team David Reynolds 0:55.7314
6 14 Lockwood Racing Fabian Coulthard 0:55.7458
7 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 0:55.7750
8 22 Holden Racing Team James Courtney 0:55.8491
9 91 Tekno Autosports Michael Patrizi 0:55.8730
10 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 0:55.8795
13 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 0:55.9003
