Todd Kelly – Holden Racing Team
“I am to be completely honest, a little bit blown away. To keep the momentum from last year, especially in a new car, was sensational. A lot guys had really good pace out there, but 9 laps from the end I started to press on pretty hard. We are going to have to do some fine tuning overnight after what we did today and make more improvements.”
James Courtney – Stone Brothers Racing/Jeld-Wen
“I got a pretty good jump at the start of the race but probably got a little bit excited on the gas and got into it a bit too hard. It wasn’t the best start but I knuckled down and was pushing on hard. In the pit stop I got held up a little bit by Craig’s (Lowndes) car and couldn’t get out so we lost a bit of time there. In the end I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Championship considering where we started last year.”
Jamie Whincup – TeamVodafone
“I am really happy with my performance today. As the heat and being first race of the season brings its own individual pressures. With only five laps to go and feeling the worst for wear I decided to give it one red hot go and try and catch up to the leaders. To pass both Frosty (Winterbottom) and Rick Kelly shows the car has got great pace and if I dig deep I can match it with the best of them in the championship. However, I am feeling pretty ordinary right now but I am sure after some treatment and a solid meal I will back ready and rearing to go for tomorrow’s race.”
Rick Kelly – Toll HSV Dealer Team
“The car was really speedy. The biggest thing for us is the driving position of the car, which is a little different, and we need to adjust the pedals slightly. Unfortunately, I made a few mistakes their which cost us a little. Also, this year we are running a new control brake package which means we have to get used to the brakes. That hurt us a little bit as well. Jamie (Whincup) got back past us at the end there because we were probably a little further away than where we should have been on the bias. Overall, I am pretty stoked to be fourth.”
Mark Winterbottom – Ford Performance Racing
“I got a great start and shortly after was leading the race. We had a brake pad temperature problem that caused some retardation problems and once this happens you are pretty much a passenger in the car as there isn’t much that you can do about it during the race. One of our pit stops didn’t go as well as it should have and due to the brake issue it was very tough to push hard. There were some negatives about our race, but we have a straight car and a top five finish and we were very quick at times, so there is no reason why we can’t win tomorrow.”
Garth Tander – Toll HSV Dealer Team
“There was oil of the track on Turn 4 and we all followed Jamie and went up the escape road. When you are stuck in the pack it is very difficult to get back through, so we just had to bide our time. We had some good stops, which helped to get us back up the front and salvaged sixth. So, we still have a good starting position for tomorrow, and we will try to make the car a little better and se what happens.”
Greg Murphy – Toll HSV Dealer Team
"With these cars being so new, we're still sorting through different issues and the gearbox was a bit of a problem today. Changing gears required a huge effort and it's hurt my shoulder, but I'll get some treatment for it and I'll be fine for tomorrow. You'd always like to finish higher, but seventh is a solid result and almost equals my best result of last year. Considering how new the car is and the gearbox issue, I think we can be pleased with the result - the Tasman Motorsport team has done a tremendous job."
Russell Ingall – Stone Brothers Racing/Caltex
“I went into the race today with a strategy to go easy in the first quarter of the race because we only wanted to change two tyres; we have the option of changing four or two in the pit stop and obviously four takes twice as long. We wanted to conserve the front tyres so we just played it cool, got past Lowndes early and hung in behind the bunch. With a couple of guys spearing off on some oil we were able to climb to fourth place so it was all looking alright. We ended up changing four tyres in the stop which cost us a bit of time and we also got a bit jammed in with Triple Eight pitting in front of us at the same time.”
Steven Johnson – Jim Beam Racing
