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rickkelly.com
The eighth round of the V8 Supercars continued at Winton Motor Raceway today with Qualifying and Race 1.
In today’s 40 lap Race 1, Kelly got off to a great start picking up three positions in the opening lap, putting him in fifth. Championship leader Mark Winterbottom fell into trouble with a flat tyre allowing Kelly to pick up another position. Winterbottom dropped right down the field to last position.
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Kelly pitted early in the race for rear tyres and had trouble with getting his rear tyres up to the optimum temperature. An incident with Lee Holdsworth left Kelly with damage to the front of his car and cost him vital track position. Kelly finished Race 1 in eleventh position overall.
Kelly’s team-mate Paul Dumbrell also got a great start placing him in tenth position after starting from thirteenth on the grid. Dumbrell also adopted an early pit stop strategy but struggled with tyre wear. He finished in sixteenth position.
Two races tomorrow will allow both Kelly and Dumbrell to move back through the field.
Jamie Whincup took the honours in Race 1, Will Davison crossed the line in second and Toll Holden Racing Teams Garth Tander took third.
The track was dry today after yesterday’s torrential downpours, however the mercury didn’t reach much more than 10 degrees.
In qualifying earlier today Kelly and Dumbrell improved on their recent qualifying positions. Dumbrell drove to thirteenth position in the second session of qualifying, marginally missing out on a place in the top ten for the third and final session. Kelly contested the final ten minute session to qualify in eighth position, Kelly later said he probably didn’t maximise the car in the final session, posting a time of 1:23.6947. Both Kelly and Dumbrell had a positive second session, finishing in sixth and seventh respectively.
FPR’s Mark Winterbottom took pole position, Jamie Whincup was second and Will Davison third. Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander was the first of the Holden’s in fourth position.
Round 8 at Winton concludes tomorrow afternoon with Races 2 and 3.
#15 Rick Kelly (Qualifying: 8th, 1:23.6947; Race 1: 11th, 1:25.1940)
“To be honest with you we didn’t qualify too badly, we probably had the car to be in fourth but didn’t maximise it in the third leg. We started from eighth, got a really good start and got up to fifth position and then to fourth when Winterbottom got a flat tyre. We were in a really good position but unfortunately after the stop we struggled to get our rear tyre temperatures up as quick as the cars behind and Holdsworth hit me which put us off the track. Rejoining we damaged the front of the car a little bit and it hurt our lap pace putting us slower than everyone else and then back in eleventh
“We have to find a bit of pace tonight and hopefully we can stay out of trouble tomorrow and also hopefully the guys will tame themselves down a little bit.”
#16 Paul Dumbrell (Qualifying: 13th, 1:23.7856; Race 1: 16th, 1:25.3236)
“We were a little bit disappointed in qualifying, we had a reasonable paced car there but we needed to squeeze a bit more out of it. We only needed a tenth of a second and we would have been up there.”
“In the race we made a good start and got up to tenth position. After we came in for tyres, Triple Eight were out in front of us and we lost a bit of time trying to manoeuvre around them. It also cost us towards the end with the car not looking after its tyres as well as it should have.”
“We need to get the car to look after its tyres a bit more, our outright pace isn’t too bad but we obviously can’t do it for long enough.”
