"You have to be honest with yourself and realize that last year we cost ourselves the opportunity to finish well on a couple of occasions because we wanted to win a bit too much," said the Holden Racing Team’s Mark Skaife.
"Sometimes it was my mistake by pushing a bit too hard, other times it was equipment or other failures. The greatest lesson I have learned from last year is that I need to accept there are times you can’t win the race or the round.
"We definitely need to be more disciplined to bring the car home for as many points as we can get."
Teammate Todd Kelly feels fitness will be the key to a successful Round One assault.
"If you look at the Clipsal 500 in the past, lots of drivers have made mistakes in the latter stages when you’re usually absolutely knackered. Nine times out of 10 you can trace those sort of errors back to fatigue, dehydration or lack of fitness," he said.
"You could always be fitter but I’m in pretty good shape right now, certainly fitter than I have ever been at this time of year before. I think I’m as prepared as I can possibly be."
Toll HSV Dealer Team leader Garth Tander is confident that he can reward his team with a top three outright finish.
"We were very happy with the new car in testing at Winton, and while you can always make things a little better, we believe we already have a better package than last year," said Tander.
"Our weekend at Clipsal last year was one of our worst last season, but our car in that race had the third fastest lap time at one point, and we went from 23rd to 7th in Race 1, and then to third or fourth when we were taken out in Race 2.
"So, there were positives there. This year, we believe we can do a lot better, and our aim is to keep the car straight and leave Adelaide in the top three in the championship."
The Clipsal 500 Adelaide gets underway on Thursday March 23rd and will run through to Sunday March 26th – the biggest four days of motor racing action in Australia.
2005 Clipsal 500 Adelaide Results:
Pole: Rick Kelly, HSV Dealer Team, VZ Commodore
1st: Marcos Ambrose, Pirtek Racing, BA Falcon
2nd: Craig Lowndes, Team Betta Electrical, BA Falcon
3rd: Todd Kelly, Holden Racing Team, VZ Commodore
