SP Tools Racing

SP Tools Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen made his Barbagallo debut at round four of the V8 Supercar Championship Series today, the young Kiwi also celebrating his 19th birthday.

The youngest driver in the field spent today’s two-and-a-quarter hour practice session learning the 2.42km circuit, eventually finishing with the 27th fastest time after experiencing some throttle problems throughout the session.

Team-mate JELD-WEN Motorsport’s James Courtney also had a debut today, the Gold Coast-based driver taking the new SBR BF Falcon for its first competition laps following the car’s shakedown at Queensland Raceway last Friday.

Courtney was happy with the JELD-WEN Motorsport Falcon’s progress early in the session but suffered problems with the balance in the new car once he moved to green tyres.

The JELD-WEN Motorsport driver was 14th fastest after practice and will work with his crew to find a good qualifying car for tomorrow.

Courtney and van Gisbergen will be on track at 10:50am tomorrow for the three-leg elimination style qualifying session, followed by race one at 2:00pm.

James Courtney, #4, JELD-WEN Motorsport
“The new car was running really well on old tyres today.

“All the changes we were making were in the right direction and we made great progress quickly.

“As soon as we put new tyres on we lost all balance. We will have to have a good look into it tonight.

“We are in pretty good shape though. We have a great race car, just not the best qualifying car at the moment; we are looking to change that tomorrow.”

Shane van Gisbergen, #9, SP Tools Racing Falcon
“With Barbagallo being a pretty small circuit there is not too much to remember. It’s pretty low grip and all the times are really close.

“We had a few problems in practice with the throttle sticking on. I also locked up and killed a tyre which hurt us in the end as we were without a full set to use.

“I was hoping to have a better day on my birthday but we have three good sets of tyres for qualifying tomorrow and we will be away again.”

Practice
1. Garth Tander 0:56.5381
2. Steven Richards 0:56.5758
3. Craig Lowndes 0:56.6550
4. Russell Ingall 0:56.7316
5. Mark Winterbottom 0:56.7590
6. Rick Kelly 0:56.8037
7. Mark Skaife 0:56.8309
8. Lee Holdsworth 0:56 .9129
9. Greg Murphy 0:56.9292
10. Jamie Whincup 0:56.9322
14. James Courtney 0:57.0421
27. Shane Van Gisbergen 0:57.6017

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 8:04 pm and is filed under V8 Supercars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.