Starting 14th and 25th Jack Daniel’s Racing duo Rick and Todd Kelly had a day of similar fortunes in race 19 of the 2102 V8 Supercar Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Starting on ‘green’ hard compound tyres Todd pitted on lap 15 for fuel and another set of ‘green’ hard tyres. However he was deemed to have sped in pitlane, meaning he received a drive-through penalty and from there, little chance of a solid result. Despite this setback Todd drove as hard as he and his tyres would allow and crossed the line 23rd.
Rick enjoyed a better start to the race and as the pit stops cycled through he moved up to 5th place when he pitted on lap 17 for fuel and his second set of ‘green’ hard compound tyres.
Returning to the track, Rick got back to 9th place before his final stop for fuel and soft tyres on lap 35.
With 21 laps to run on the soft tyres, Rick then battled with Michael Patrizi, Shane van Gisbergen and Tim Slade for many laps.
Towards the end of the race Rick struggled for grip and with just 4 laps to go he locked a left front tyre and ran wide in turn 2, eventually finishing 15th.
Rick Kelly – “Our race pace was pretty good in Saturday’s race and we improved our qualifying on Sunday. Our race pace wasn’t quite as strong compared to others as Saturday and it seems everyone else made a good jump as well as us and we just weren’t able to move forward, which shows you how tough and competitive the category is now and we need to react to that and get ourselves up to where we belong. We head to the enduros at Sandown and I can’t wait to get there”.
Todd Kelly – “It was a very tough day for us and we are not where we need to be as a team and in the end the cars were not fast enough. We didn’t do a good enough job of setting them up. I am still not sure what the drive-through penalty was for so I must chase it up. But we certainly have a lot of work to do when we get back”.
RACE 19 RESULTS
1 Jamie Whincup
2 Craig Lowndes
3 Mark Winterbottom
4 Russell Ingall
5 Will Davison
6 Fabian Coulthard
7 David Reynolds
8 Jason Bright
9 Garth Tander
10 James Courtney
15 Rick Kelly
23 Todd Kelly
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER RACE 19
1 Jamie Whincup 2238
2 Mark Winterbottom 2237
3 Will Davison 2116
4 Craig Lowndes 2084
5 Shane Van Gisbergen 1634
6 Garth Tander 1527
7 Tim Slade 1464
8 Fabian Coulthard 1432
9 Lee Holdsworth 1286
10 David Reynolds 1179
15 Todd Kelly 1082
16 Rick Kelly 1057