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Bright Confident to Bounce Back

06 Jul 2013
Jason Bright says he is not in a slump, despite having ordinary results at recent events.
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Jason Bright says he is not in a slump, despite having ordinary results at recent events.

Since Perth, Bright has dropped one Championship position after each event, having been as high as fourth and now sitting in sixth (click here to see Bright’s season progress). 

Funnily enough, he only sits seven points below his teammate Fabian Coulthard, who also had a tough run in Darwin and fell in the standings.

Bright hasn’t had a race win since his emotional victory in New Zealand – Race Nine in the Championship. Today’s is Race 20.

However, the Team BOC driver isn’t worried after a few less than perfect events, and conceded he could’ve been on the podium in Darwin had the races not been hampered with incidents.

“I think I’ve had a couple of bad rounds,” Bright said after Practice Three yesterday.

“Race pace wise in Darwin I felt we were strong – we just didn’t qualify well. The start of the first race and the last race we had a bent steering, the front splitter falling off for the whole race; and a really bad pit stop in the middle race.

“If it wasn’t for those, I’m sure we could’ve gotten a podium or somewhere near it … In Darwin we were a lot quicker than the results we got.”

Bright finished 11th in the final practice session of the Sucrogen Townsville 400 yesterday, while Coulthard was 24th (Click here for full session results).

As always on Friday though, tyres had an impact. Everyone was on pre-marked tyres, but the quality differs and some teams choose to run the faster soft compound Dunlop tyre.

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“I think a lot of people ran tyres at the end there – that’s the hard part, a lot of people ran softs … but you can’t check every single person, it’s a little hard to tell.

“The benchmark this year has been FPR, Triple Eight and us, so I’d be surprised if one of those guys merely just jumped us.

“Dave (Reynolds, who was quickest in the session) would be a long way in front of his teammates if he didn’t run softs.

“We’ll soon find out – the car doesn’t feel too bad, so we shouldn’t be too far back.”

Bright believes Mark Winterbottom was quickest on hard tyres, Will Davison second and that he was third.

“Since we qualify on hards, I think that bodes quite well, although we'll still have to do some long stints on softs in the race.

“Pace-wise I don't think we're too bad though, even though I had a troubled run. We broke a shock early on so the whole of my first session was a waste because the corner weights were out. Then in the second session we damaged a tyre, so the day didn't go too smoothly.”

The first session of the day, Practice Zero, was for co-drivers only. Andrew Jones jumped in the car, and while Bright said he went ok – especially for his first time in the Car of the Future Holden Commodore – there was a problem with the car that made it difficult.

Despite Bright and teammate Coulthard’s falling in the points over the last few events, BJR is still second in the team’s Championship, an achievement Brad Jones is happy with.

The first session of the day is Practice Four – being shown exclusively, live and uninterrupted on V8 SuperView – followed by ARMOR ALL Qualifying, the Top 10 Shootout and the first of two 200km, 70-lap races for the weekend at the Sucrogen Townsville 400.

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