Race Reactions: Bigpond 400 Race One.
Garth Tander Toll HSV Dealer Team
My clutch was finished, basically, before the stop, and we lost a lot of time there waiting for the clutch to take up. Mark (Winterbottom) got around us. Mark was fast the first half of the race, and it was only in the second half when we had better tyre life that we were able to chase them down and get around them. This is good, but it is only Race 1 of round three of a long year, and we have a long way to go. We will look to make some changes to see if we can make the car flow a bit better through the final two corners.
Mark Winterbottom Ford Performance Racing
A good race - particularly starting from pole position for the first time. The only down side to the race was the tyre life. When the tyres are good we have a fantastic car, but when the tyres wear our performance deteriorates drastically. I am disappointed that Garth got through towards the end after we led the race for some twenty laps starting off with a good two second gap. We will work on getting on top of our tyre life problems and I am sure that when we do we will have a car that will be unbeatable. I'll take second place as a worst case scenario any day. The team did a great job to get me back out in front after the pit stop.
Rick Kelly Toll HSV Dealer Team
The battle with Richo (Steve Richards) cost us a fair bit of time as the others were able to trickle away a little bit. The pass took a while, because Richo was on the grass on the left and then on the grass on the right and somehow landed on the middle of the track. It was quite difficult to get past him, but it was a good dice. We will go back and look at the car to see if we can make it a bit nicer for tomorrow.
Jamie Whincup - TeamVodafone
Todays race went better than we had planned. We had originally set ourselves a goal of finishing in the top six so to come away with fourth is fantastic. We had good overall car speed especially towards the end of the race which allowed me to pass Steven Richards with eight laps to go. Tonight we will work on finding a bit more front grip to give me some assistance in exiting the hairpin. We have a good starting position for tomorrow and if I can maintain top five finishes in both races I have a good chance of making up some championship places.
Steven Richards Ford Performance Racing
A good start to our weekend with both cars in the top five and it was a great day for FPR in qualifying as well. During the second half of today's race I had a deflating right rear tyre in which the team is confident was the cause of our handling problems during the closing stages. The first half of the race was fantastic, the car was as competitive as anyone out there. We have a very strong car for the two races ahead of us.
Todd Kelly Holden Racing Team
I had to slow down behind Whincup at a pitstop and lost 100m to him as we resumed our track positions. Our times were similar so I couldn't catch the group in front and had to settle for sixth. The car was good all race and if I can hang in with the front runners we should do well in races 2 and 3 tomorrow.
Jason Richards Tasman MTA Motorsport
Today turned out reasonably good, seventh is a good result and gives us a better starting position for tomorrow's two races. The car was balanced throughout the various stages of the race and I was able to run off high 56/low 57 second laps easily for a large chunk of the race. We didn't have too many concerns; I got a good start but Ingall's car was dropping some fluid, I think fuel from the tank, and that created a bit of a drama, while the sun was in our eyes coming over the hill and I had a couple of big moments because of that, but it was the same for everyone. For the first time this year, we had a really good pit stop, which was the result of some equipment change and lots of practice by the boys, and that help us immensely.
Russell Ingall Stone Brothers Racing/Caltex
![Garth Tander - Toll HSV Holden Commodore [pic credit: Toll HSV media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/300779.jpg)
