Swapping from the harder control tyre to the soft-compound rubber made all the difference to Lockwood Racing’s Fabian Coulthard today at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Coulthard, who started 14th, was going nowhere in the opening laps but, after pitting for softs around lap 20 of the 36-lap race, he recovered to finish 12th.
It was mandatory to use both rubber compounds today but Coulthard says the team will be making better use of the faster soft tyres in tomorrow’s longer race.
Qualifying starts at 12.25pm.
Fabian Coulthard
Lockwood Racing
“It’s pretty close around here but our car’s just not stong enough through turns three, four and five and you can’t afford to have that. The car needs to be working everywhere so we salvaged an average result considering how the car is.
“Our hard tyre pace isn’t good enough and we haven’t found the magic cure to fix it. When you’re in that position you can’t get past the cars in front. You just have to wait for them to make a mistake.”
Sydney Motorsport Park 360 – V8 Supercar C’ship Races 18&19
SYDNEY MOTORSPORT PARK
V8 SUPERCARS – Qualifying Race 18
01 Jamie Whincup, TeamVodafone, 1:29.6353
02 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports, +0.0189
03 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford, +0.0541
04 Michael Caruso, Fujitsu Racing, +0.1017
05 Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel FPR Ford, +0.1115
06 Craig Lowndes, TeamVodafone, +0.1288
07 David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing Team, +0.1476
08 Shane Van Gisbergen, SP Tools Racing, +0.3043
09 Tony D’Alberto, Team Hiflex, +0.3157
10 Russell Ingall, Supercheap Auto Racing, +0.3173
14 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing, +0.5318
Sydney Motorsport Park 360 – V8 Supercar C’ship Races 18&19
SYDNEY MOTORSPORT PARK
V8 SUPERCARS – Race 18
01 Craig Lowndes, TeamVodafone
02 Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel FPR Ford
03 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford
04 Garth Tander, Holden Racing Team
05 Russell Ingall, Supercheap Auto Racing
06 James Courtney, Holden Racing Team
07 Shane Van Gisbergen, SP Tools Racing
08 Michael Caruso, Fujitsu Racing
09 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports
10 Jason Bright, Team BOC
12 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing