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'Heartless' Bathurst beats BJR again

15 Oct 2014
Brad Jones ponders: "I don't know if we will ever win it"
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A deeply disappointed Brad Jones has questioned whether he and the eponymous team he co-owns with brother Kim will ever fulfil their dream of winning the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, after they went from the high of placing all three cars in the top six in qualifying on Friday to the low of having only one finish in the top 10 on Sunday.

"This is a heartless joint and tough," he told v8supercars.com.au as the team packed up on Sunday night at Mount Panorama. "I don't know if we will ever win it.

"We will go home and work through it all and reflect on it.

"But one thing you need at Bathurst is a little bit of luck and if you don't have that little bit of good luck then you have no chance. Today we had a little bit of bad luck."

Neither Jones or Brad Jones Racing has ever won at Bathurst, even though they are intrinsically linked with the 1000km classic and have made clear they would prize victory there above all else.

The team has two second places at Mount Panorama, while as a driver Jones finished on the podium sixtimes (including Super Touring results) and in the top 10 another five times.

At the centre of BJR's Sunday dramas was a safety car period called when the Fabian Coulthard/Luke Youlden Lockwood Racing Holden Commodore VF entry hit a kangaroo.

Unsighted Advam/GB Galvanising driver Dale Wood then piled in to the team's third car, the Team BOC entry of Jason Bright and Andrew Jones (who was driving at the time), which had slowed up behind the safety car on top of the mountain.

Wood and co-driver Chris Pither were out on the spot while the Bright/Jones entry lost four laps making repairs and replacing a failed starter motor.

The Lockwood entry, which had earlier been bogged in the Caltex Chase sand trap after a tyre failure when Youlden was also at the wheel, went down a lap but fought back into the top three late in the race through some clever strategy.

However, Coulthard flat-spotted a tyre and ran off, had to make an extra pit stop and then suffered bent steering in a clash with Jeld-Wen Falcon driver Jack Perkins at The Cutting. He ended ninth, while Bright crossed the line in 14th.

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That result has all but theoretically knocked Coulthard from championship contention, as he now lies sixth, 523 points behind leader Jamie Whincup in the Red Bull Commodore. BJR also has fallen to fourth in the teams' championship, 1326 points off Red Bull's pace.

Coulthard and the team's solace was leaving Mount Panorama as the owner of the new qualifying lap record - a spectacular 2min05.6080 sec time.

"I just feel today that I am clearly not meant to win the race here," Jones told v8supercars.com.au.

"Lots of people had the opportunity to win the race and we had as good an opportunity as anyone and it just unfolded the wrong way.

"Watching the race, the way it was unfolding it was like it was scripted. It was crazy. It would have been pretty sweet to have been up on the podium."

This year's Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 marked the 20th anniversary of one of Jones' finest drives at Mount Panorama, when he took the Holden Racing Team Commodore he was sharing with debutante Crag Lowndes from the edge of being lapped to seconds from taking the race lead. Lowndes then jumped in the car and nearly won the race after a heated battle with eventual winner John Bowe in the Shell-FAI Ford Falcon he was sharing with Dick Johnson.

"My little speech at the start of the day was let's get to lap 100 and that's when the race starts," said Jones. "It didn't quite happen that way.

"I need to go away and lick my wounds."

BJR will conduct its Bathurst debrief today (Thursday) before turning its attention to the October 24-26 Castrol EDGE Gold Coast 600. The team anticipates no special issues repairing the Wood/Pither Commodore in time for the final round of the Pirtek Enduro Cup.

Coulthard and Youlden finished second in the Sunday race at the tough Gold Coast venue last year.

"We were quick at the Gold Coast last year so hopefully we can grab a couple of surf boards this year," Jones said.

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