Shane van Gisbergen was beaten to a place on the podium by just 0.8867 of a second and finished in 4th position at the Phillip Island 300 today.
Race 11 saw plenty of bumps, crashes and safety cars. After Qualifying in 8th van Gisbergen, in similar fashion to yesterday, battled his way through the field and gave himself a chance of a podium finish.
The dying stages of the race were thrilling and he used everything his car had to pass Whincup and move into 4th. With just 3 laps to go it was only Jason Bright, who at this stage had only pitted once, that stood in the way of him and the podium. But the SP Tools Falcon just didn’t have the tyre life to catch the BOC car.
Lee Holdsworth again finished in the top 10 after changing his strategy early on, opting to only pit once during the 45 lap race. Lee started the race in 12th place and when the safety car was deployed on lap five his engineer, Brad Wischusen, decided he should push on and avoid queuing in pit lane. It was a decision that paid off and the IRWIN Racing Falcon came home in 9th position.
Tim Slade was unable to reproduce yesterday’s brilliant Qualifying and race form, and started his Lucky 7 Racing Falcon in 15th. He was quick off the start line and managed to stay out of mischief and carnage that went on around him during the race. He didn’t quite have the pace to push through the field and finished in 12th.
SBR still stands strong on the Championship points table with van Gisbergen sitting in 5th, Holdsworth just one place behind in 6th and Slade in 7th.
Lee Holdsworth – Car #4 IRWIN Racing:
“We struggled a bit with Qualifying and the car was a little bit out of the window. We have to fix that side of things because that is half the job over the weekend – getting Qualifying done. If you qualify well you usually end up in a pretty good position and around guys who you can actually race with, not guys that are going to biff and barge.”
“This morning was a little bit disappointing but I thought Brad did an excellent job to get us back up the front by choosing not to pit at the start. It was a bit of a risky move but it paid off. The only frustrating thing is I had to race in the mirrors the whole way home because we were saving more fuel than everyone else, plus we had done more laps on our tyres.”
“But we came home with another top 10 result, another bundle of points for the Championship and still only have two races this year where we have finished out of the top 10. Overall – not too bad.”
Shane van Gisbergen – Car #9 SP Tools Racing:
“Our car wasn’t as good as yesterday but it was still competitive. Just in the middle stints the balance was really good but not our grip and tyre life. The Triple Eight cars passed us and pulled away. Then in the last stint we had new tyres but the balance was really understeery, the track gripped up and it got worse and worse.”
“I didn’t really have the pace but I pushed forward and went around the outside of Craig and we had really good racing. But each time I pushed my tyres would get hot and I would have to drift back and save them again.”
“I couldn’t catch Bright because I used my tyres up catching Jaime and passing him, and our balance was just not good enough. So 4th is where I finished and after the last couple of weekends we’ve had I’ll take a 2nd and a 4th. I’m pretty happy to be back on the pace again.”
Tim Slade – Car #47 Lucky 7 Racing:
“We didn’t really have the car to do the job today. Our practice this morning started off really well with conditions pretty similar to yesterday, but after that we just lost our way a little bit.”
“I think the track changed a little bit today and it didn’t really seem to suit the set up that we had in the car. I think we improved the car a little bit between Qualifying and the race but unfortunately it was just not good enough.”
Phillip Island 300 Race 11 – RESULTS:
1 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 01:19:46.1086
2 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 01:19:46.6638
3 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 01:19:51.3097
4 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 01:19:52.1964
5 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 01:19:52.5299
6 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 01:19:52.7973
7 19 Tekno Autosports Jonathon Webb 01:19:53.5489
8 55 The Bottle-O Racing Team David Reynolds 01:19:57.2946
9 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 01:19:59.2730
10 2 Holden Racing Team Garth Tander 01:19:59.4164
12 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 01:20:03.2282
Phillip Island 300 Qualifying – RESULTS:
1 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 1:32.3167
2 55 The Bottle-O Racing Team David Reynolds 1:32.5063
3 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 1:32.5272
4 5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Mark Winterbottom 1:32.7070
5 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 1:32.7176
6 1 TeamVodafone Jamie Whincup 1:32.7320
7 91 Tekno Autosports Michael Patrizi 1:32.8478
8 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 1:32.9068
9 14 Lockwood Racing Fabian Coulthard 1:32.9781
10 19 Tekno Autosports Jonathon Webb 1:32.9811
12 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 1:33.0496
15 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 1:33.0789
Phillip Island 300 Practice Part 5– RESULTS:
1 47 Lucky 7 Racing Tim Slade 1:33.0515
2 7 Jack Daniel’s Racing Todd Kelly 1:33.4254
3 9 SP Tools Racing Shane Van Gisbergen 1:33.4472
4 4 Irwin Racing Lee Holdsworth 1:33.4953
5 6 Trading Post FPR Ford Will Davison 1:33.5825
6 91 Tekno Autosports Michael Patrizi 1:33.7519
7 34 Fujitsu Racing GRM Michael Caruso 1:33.8050
8 22 Holden Racing Team James Courtney 1:33.8478
9 888 TeamVodafone Craig Lowndes 1:34.0162
10 8 Team BOC Jason Bright 1:34.0701
