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Drivers' Quoteboard: Race 18

22 Jun 2014
The SKYCITY Triple Crown is complete -what did your favourite drivers think of Sunday's 200km race?
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SKYCITY Triple Crown Darwin Sunday Press Conference

Mark Winterbottom, Ford Pepsi Max Crew, p1:

"It was an incredible race with so many differing tyre strategies. I finally got a good start and early on it was nice to see our cars 1-2-3. We were much better on softs and the day was all about tyre management. We had our best tyres on early and our key rivals used theirs at the end so we knew it would be close. I think today ranks as one of my best drives ever. It obviously isn't as big as Bathurst but I think it is my best win with this team. Bathurst was just a two-car dog fight, this race had a lot of strategy and I had to pass a lot of cars and really manage the tyres to make it all work. It was my first big strategy win with my engineer Grant (McPherson) so it feels great. On the last lap I was sliding sideways and Shane (van Gisbergen) stuck his nose in and I was a bit out of control. To come down to the last lap makes it pretty special."

Shane van Gisbergen, VIP Petfoods TEKNO Autosports, p2:

"I had a couple of quick laps and thought 'this is going to be good. But I had a couple of slides two corners in a row and it's pretty hard to recover from that, the tyres were just gone.

"I was second last at one point in that race so I wasn't expecting to finish second."

Jamie Whincup, Red Bull Racing Australia, p3:

"All in all it was a good weekend for the team of car #1 on both of the tyre compounds. To be honest the strategy change from the other teams for the race start surprised us and we thought everyone would start on hard tyres but we stuck to the plan knowing that we needed a safety car - which we got - and it was at the right time. Although we were in the box seat with our strategy we ended up in third today because it came down to car pace, which the other two teams had. In the last few laps I knew that Shane van Gisbergen was faster and just like the fans on the hill I wanted to see a good race so I made a move to see him give it a red hot go.

"It was really important for us to get back in form for this weekend and we had a great test day during the break so we're looking forward to the second half of the season."

David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing, p4:

"It was much better on qualifying today. We fixed the car overnight and it worked a lot better in the race. We had a great start and I led very comfortably but the safety car hurt us and killed our fairly high-risk strategy. Overall it was a good day and while we missed out a little bit we have great pace on the soft tyres. We just need to work on a few things on the hard tyre, otherwise I am pretty happy."

James Moffat, Norton Hornets, p7:

"I can't recommend doing 200km around here without a cool suit. It certainly makes you feel alive!

"To come away with a seventh place finish from where we started, I'm pretty happy with that.

"If we could work out how to qualify on these soft tyres and start these races further up, we're proving our race pace is very, very strong.

"We had a bit of an advantage with having a fresher set of hard tyres at the start of the race, and it was important that we made the most of that. I felt like we did and it's good to get back some of those points that we lost yesterday."

Scott McLaughlin, Valvoline Racing GRM, p8:

"The team gave me a great car and a great strategy for the final race. We didn't have the pace for the top three in the races, but we are making progress and I am pretty happy.

"I was one of the fastest drivers on the older, used hard tyre which was good. Hopefully we can take this knowledge into the next race at Townsville and we will be on it."

Rick Kelly, Jack Daniel's Racing, p9:

"It was a pretty solid result.It was really difficult to tell where we sat the whole race long, because there were so many different strategies coming into play."Look, I loved it, I had some really great battles out there, a bit of aggressive driving from others and from myself a little bit as well.I think as a sport, that's what we're after, a little bit of biff and barge, but still good clean racing.

"For us it was a semi-solid result, so we're happy with that.The safety car period hurt us, we got jumped by a few in that exchange, which was a bit of a bummer, because up until that point we were cruising for a slightly better result.

"I'm pretty happy, we scored some good points from the day, the strategy call we made yesterday worked for us, and we head to Townsville with more confidence."

Dale Wood, Team ADVAM/GB Gal, p11:

"That's the best race I've had in the V8 Supercars since Adelaide and Winton. There was heaps of action and an ability to pass because of tyre degradation going on. It was great fun. At the start we weren't great but we preferred to hurt at the start of the race. It was bloody good considering where we qualified. I feel more and more competitive. I need to work on qualifying but when I qualify well I can run in the group I qualify around. Hopefully I'm looking forward from here and there's more of these kinds of results to come."

Michael Caruso, Norton Hornets, p13:

"I'm pretty relived to come away with 13th.

"We had a broken rear roll bar and had an engine misfire, so the race was a warzone for me.It was pretty difficult, as the rear tyres were wearing out pretty quickly because of the roll bar situation.Considering what happened, 13th place was a pretty reasonable result."

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Scott Pye, Dick Johnson Racing, p14:

"A tough old race for us, and we did make it even tougher by qualifying in P19. The car speed once again in the race was good but the Safety Car timing really did not help as we moved to the hard tyre.

"Overall we made some good improvements with the car and in today's race our pace was good on both compounds of Dunlop rubber. I think we can head to Townsville with more good information and confidence with the car."

Chaz Mostert, Ford Pepsi Max Crew, p15:

"It was a real tough day. We had a set strategy and the safety car came out at the wrong time and we got swamped by a lot of other cars on fresher rubber. I was basically a sitting duck and was involved in a few dog fights which didn't help either. The car is a little beaten up but we were pretty much cooked after the safety car. If not for that we would've been higher up, probably well in the top 10 so now we focus on Townsville next week. We're ninth in points and there is a long way to go still in this season."

Craig Lowndes, Red Bull Racing Australia, p17:

"Our strategy today was to start on the hard tyre and then follow it up with two sets of soft tyres with a brand new set for the end of the race. With the altercation mid race we got a flat tyre and we were already on a soft set so we had to put on one brand new tyre and we were too far away from the end of the race to put on a whole new set. When the final three tyres came on the car it was balanced again and we were really fast but soft tyres can't last forever and we burnt them up towards the end. It was one of those days that got away from us. It was gut-wrenching to know that we had the speed, the strategy and the tyres to do it but we'll take it all on board and move forward to Townsville."

David Wall, Dick Johnson Racing, p18:

"The power steering failure in Qualifying didn't help but we had a good strategy. We were running well up the field and in good shape before Todd Kelly fired into Lee (Holdsworth) and I got hit twice. Caught the first one but the second one sent us around and lost us a heap of time.

"We ended up in P18 but realistically we should have been fighting for a Top 10 result."

Jason Bright, Team BOC, p20:

"The race was going really well. The safety car certainly wasn't a good thing for us but that stint after it went in went really well, especially considering I was on older tyres than the rest of them around us. We bent the steering when Tander tried to pass too deep. It's disappointing and ruined our day but those things happen and we put ourselves in that situation I guess by staying out there for one or two laps too long. We'll learn from that. The wheel-spinning in the pits was totally unintentional, the clutch must have been dragging. The biggest problem all year was qualifying and we qualified pretty well this weekend. I think we can certainly take that to other rounds and as long as we qualify better we can have good races."

Jack Perkins, Team JELD-WEN, p21:

"Tough day. We got caught out with strategy, went a lap down and then a short-fill on fuel made things harder. We had a car capable of being in the top 10 but nothing went as planned so luckily we have only a week (or so) between races so we can have another crack at making our Team JELD-WEN Ford faster."

Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing, p22:

"It's a really disappointing result. We have to move on now and look to Townsville."

Nick Percat, Walkinshaw Racing, p23:

"That was a better day today early on. We still have a lot of work to do before the next round, but we have some good data from today and I am looking forward to racing in Townsville, in two weeks."

Todd Kelly, Jack Daniel's Racing, p24:

"We had a good opportunity to get a result, we had really good tyres, the guys had a good strategy and I had a great car.

"Every time I was in clean air, I would catch the cars ahead of me quite easily, and I was in a position to attack, pass, and drive away.

"So the car was certainly fast, it's just a shame we couldn't convert that to a result.

"I was getting held up quite a bit by the guys in front, and I made a safe pass up the inside at the hairpin.

"I was past, inside the guys driving out of the corner, and something has grabbed my right rear wheel and plucked the suspension out of it.

"I couldn't have been any tighter in the corner, I couldn't have done much about it at that point, it's just a shame because we could have wound up with an extremely good result then.

"We had everything going for us, but unfortunately we just couldn't pull it together."

Robert Dahlgren, Valvoline Racing GRM, p25:

"I made some mistakes in qualifying unfortunately which cost me a top 10 grid position, that was really annoying. I had some hard battles in the first two races and then after the first pitstop in the final race I had a stuck throttle in fifth gear. It was a really tough and long day at the office today."

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