Greg Murphy launched an attack on the Bahrain International Circuit after coming home tenth in the first race of the Desert 400 meeting this weekend, branding the Middle Eastern track grip-less and ‘not great for racing'.
The Tasman Motorsport ace qualified ninth – a strong improvement over Thursday's 18th-fastest practice result – but he would go on to take the chequered flag a gaping 35 seconds adrift of race-winner Mark Winterbottom, after an opening lap incident had removed championship contenders Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes from the fray, along with Holden driver Paul Morris.
“The first lap was chaotic and the contest with (Jason) Bargwanna was good, but the rest was very ordinary,” admitted the British-born 35-year-old, whose only excitement during the opening encounter came during his late-race, three lap doorhandle-to-doorhandle dice with the WPS Racing pilot.
“Winterbottom did a terrific job to win, but I'm sure he'd say winning by eight seconds after 31 laps wasn't a great race. The track has no grip, and with this tyre it's not great for racing.”
Team-mate Jason Richards lined up a lowly 21st on the starting grid after his qualifying efforts were hampered by a bent roll bar, and from there on it was always going to be a case of damage limitation for the Kiwi, who crossed the line down in 16th place.
“Qualifying was difficult and we didn't make it through to the second leg,” the 31-year-old acknowledged. “The car was awful, and we discovered a bent roll bar link after the session.
“In the race I was hoping to make a comeback and get into the points. I got a ripper start, but then got caught out wide on the first lap and lost a few spots. After that it was all follow the leader.
“We just don't have the car to threaten the top ten at the moment, so we'll try to find a solution tonight. Tomorrow we need to try to work our way forward and bank some points.”
