Sunday 9th
March 2008
Kelly narrowly misses podium finish at Eastern Creek
Super consistent
driving from the HSV Dealer Team’s Rick Kelly in Races 2 & 3 at
Eastern Creek today, led to an equal fourth result overall for the
weekend. Team-mate Paul Dumbrell also finished strongly in the final
race to claim a Top 10 position and just outside the top ten in 11th
for the round.
Both drivers avoided
a series of accidents that saw the safety car twice spend long periods
of time on the track in Race 3.
After the second
restart, the race was reduced to a two-lap sprint to the line, with
Kelly maintaining his second placing rather than make any risky moves
on Winterbottom. Kelly recorded the fastest lap time of the race with
a 1 minute, 34.0983 seconds on lap 10, but it was not enough to get
ahead of eventual race winner Mark Winterbottom.
After starting from
fourth on the grid in Race 2 Kelly got off to a flying start picking
up two positions on the first lap. Kelly’s HSV Dealer Team stable mate
Paul Dumbrell was relegated five positions in a post race stewards
hearing after an incident with Cameron McConville at turn two on lap
24 of Race 1, putting him back to 16th on the grid for the
Race 2 start.
Kelly and Dumbrell
adopted slightly different pit stop strategies for Race 2, Kelly
coming in early in the compulsory pit-stop window for tyres, Dumbrell
opting to stay out. Eventually he was one of the last in the field to
pit.
Rick Kelly was on
pace to gain position in the pit stop however both the #15 and #16
cars succumbed to cross threaded wheel nut issues, placing Kelly back
out in the field in 5th position, Dumbrell in 14th.
Dumbrell picked up two positions in the final laps placing him in 12th.
Ford’s Will Davison
claimed his first race and round wins in his career, edging out Mark
Winterbottom and the Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander for the
round points.
Earlier today NSW
premier Morris Iemma and two of his children visited Rick Kelly for a
tour of the HSV Dealer team pit.
Rick Kelly (Race 2:
4th, Race 3: 2nd 1:34.0983)
“The main thing is
building towards the Championship and today we moved from 3rd
to 2nd. We haven’t lost any points to Whincup in first (who is leading
the Series); we equalled him today on points.”
“Our secondary aim
in building toward the Championship is to finish on the podium each
race and unfortunately today we missed out on that by a couple of
points but I think we capitalised well on the wheel nut problem we had
in Race 2 which unfortunately cost us nine seconds and probably an
even better result.”
“We were pretty
similar, pace wise, to Winterbottom and it wasn’t really worth risking
too much to get past him. He had exceptional pace and a pass in the
last two laps would have been risky.”
“Looking to the AGP
next weekend, it is exciting for us to have the Holden versus Ford
format and it is a good chance for us to build up team camaraderie. We
are quite a fresh team and it is important for us to get a race
meeting like that under our belt so we learn to work better together.”
Paul Dumbrell (Race
2: 12th, Race 3: 9th, 1:34.7585)
“It’s obviously a
good way to end the weekend, we qualified in the top ten and we should
be racing there the whole time. We had a bit of bad luck this
weekend, but I think we regrouped pretty well to get there in the
end.”
“It worked well in
Race 2 to pit late I think with the tyre bank we had. It’s touch and
go out there and at the end of the day I think we made the right
decision to move forward.”
“We had good speed
in Adelaide but we didn’t come home with the points in the end, the
start to this weekend wasn’t brilliant but it is obviously a good
platform for the next couple of rounds.”
“We were racing
pretty hard out there and sometimes in the heat of the battle things
go wrong and you have to cop the referee’s decision and for us that
was five positions.”
Championship
positions after Round 2:
1.
Jamie Whincup
2. Rick Kelly
3.
Lee Holdsworth
4.
Mark Winterbottom
5.
Will Davison
6.
Craig Lowndes
7.
Greg Murphy
8.
Garth Tander
9.
Mark Skaife
10.
Todd Kelly
24. Paul Dumbrell