Pitting early in today’s 74-lap race at Sydney Olympic Park Street Circuit meant Team BOC’s Jason Bright made it home on fumes for a top ten finish.
With only one hot-lap in qualifying, thanks to an unusual amount of stoppages, Bright said he was lucky to start from 12th and capitalised by moving up to seventh off the start line.
He was issued a stewards penalty a few laps later, however, for contact with Tim Slade and ordered to redress the place.
That put him ninth and, more importantly for strategy, behind team-mate Fabian Coulthard, which could have meant queuing in pit lane had a safety car been called.
Bright decided to pit early and avoid that situation, meaning he spent the rest of the race conserving fuel to make it to the finish in ninth place.
V8 Supercars will be back on track after the summer break for the Clipsal 500 from February 28th to March 3rd.
Jason Bright
Team BOC
“It was a bit disappointing to end up getting the penalty on the first lap. I saw a move yesterday from Courtney and Whincup that looked pretty desperate and cost a few people a lot of positions. I was told it was just down to first lap congestion so I think there’s still a lot of inconsistency with our rule makers.
“The penalty put us behind Fabian, which put us on a different strategy because otherwise we might have ended up having to queue if there was a safety car. We pitted very early, which meant we had to trim fuel for the rest of the race.
“I mucked up my footing at one point and ended to go down the escape road but, otherwise, the car had good pace.
“In qualifying I made one mistake on my first set of tyres and we aborted that. I never got another full lap until the last four minutes, which meant we were behind the eight ball. If you put my best sectors together we would have ended sixth or seventh.
“All in all it wasn’t the day that we hoped for but I think we showed both cars had top ten pace. Going into next year we’ve got all the same team, engineers, drivers and sponsors so we can hit the ground concentrating on how to make the cars better, not learning how everyone works.”
Sydney Telstra 500 – V8 Supercars Championship – Races 29&30
SYDNEY OLYMPIC PARK STREET CIRCUIT
QUALIFYING RACE 30
01 Garth Tander, Holden Racing Team, 1:27.6295
02 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford, +0.1197
03 James Courtney, Holden Racing Team, +0.2000
04 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports, +0.3401
05 Craig Lowndes, TeamVodafone, +0.3666
06 Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel FPR Ford, +0.4866
07 James Moffat, Team Norton, +0.4988
08 Tim Slade, Lucky 7 Racing, +0.5500
09 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing, +0.6720
10 Steve Owen, VIP Petfoods, +0.6799
12 Jason Bright, Team BOC, +0.7016
Sydney Telstra 500 – V8 Supercars Championship – Races 29&30
SYDNEY OLYMPIC PARK STREET CIRCUIT
RACE 30
01 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford
02 Craig Lowndes, TeamVodafone
03 James Courtney, Holden Racing Team
04 Tim Slade, Lucky 7 Racing
05 Jamie Whincup, TeamVodafone
06 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports
07 David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing Team
08 Steve Owen, VIP Petfoods
09 Jason Bright, Team BOC
10 Steve Johnson, Jim Beam Racing
15 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing
