Marcos Ambrose has placed a hand on this year's V8 Supercar Championship with a dominant display in the first race of The VIP Petfoods Main Event at Eastern Creek today [Saturday]. Ambrose was unchallenged on his way to victory, and moved to within a whisker of sealing the Championship.
With a disastrous day to his only two rivals for the crown, Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy, Ambrose will now only need to finish 31st in tomorrow's season closer to claim the crown. Jason Bright and Todd Kelly joined him on the podium today, team-mate Russell Ingall just missing out.
"I thought we had a good enough car for pole and the race win," Ambrose said. "It is great to win, and it was nearly perfect with the tough runs to my main rivals."
Ambrose beat Todd Kelly off the start, and was trailing pole sitting Skaife when the latter was given a drive-through penalty for jumping the start. That left Ambrose with clear air and the chance to pull a 15 second gap.
"I just had to concentrate on keeping the gap to Bright at about 15 to 16 seconds, there was no point in using the tyres and going any harder because you need to keep some tyres for if there is a Safety Car.
"I can't wait for tomorrow to seal the Championship with a win."
The only scenario that will now not see Ambrose as Champion is a DNF to the #4 Pirtek Falcon and for Skaife or Murphy to win. The odds are now stacked well in favour of the 26-year-old Ford driver.
Both Skaife and Murphy scored drive-through penalties during the race, Skaife's on the second lap for the jumped start and Murphy just after half distance for spinning Glenn Seton. The penalties almost ended the Championship chances for each driver, and allowed Skaife to jump Murphy in the battle for second.
Skaife finished the day in eighth, while Murphy was down in 24th.
Skaife was bitterly disappointed with the drive-through penalty handed out to him, but was not yet sure if it was deserved.
"I can't comment until I see the vision, I know we rolled a bit but I thought I had it stopped," Skaife said. "I think you need to look at whether we got a net gain out of it, and we didn't, I mean we really had to battle to keep Ambrose out in that first corner.
