Owen Kelly tries to get a grip.

Team Fujitsu's Owen Kelly and Jose Fernandez both qualified their Ford Falcons in the top-ten at Winton Raceway in the third round of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series.

Kelly will start tomorrow's first of three races in fourth place while Fernandez is in tenth. Kelly posted a one-minute 24.11 second lap which disappointed the young Melbourne based driver.

"We've struggled for grip today," Kelly explained. "With better tyres in qualifying the Ford was reasonable, but it just didn't have the speed for that one lap that I needed."

Kelly also admitted that qualifying didn't quite go as planned. "The qualifying session didn't go as smoothly as I wanted it to," Kelly said.

"I got caught up in traffic, which can happen to anyone; it basically just wasn't our day." Kelly's teammate Jose Fernandez was very happy with his top-ten starting position, making big gains on his early practice times.

"I started the day driving one-minute 26 second laps, by qualifying I had reduced this by two seconds, so I'm pretty pleased with that," Jose
Fernandez said.

"It's my first go at Winton, I was here last year but only did a few laps because of car problems so I was basically learning a new circuit. Winton is quite technical and it was very slippery today, there was not much grip out there.

"I was having problems in the second sector earlier, which slowed me, but I managed to get on top of it."

Both drivers believe they can perform strongly tomorrow based on recent form. "The Ford has been really good all season, I have no reason to think that it won't do the job tomorrow," Kelly said. "The aim is a podium placing which is well within my reach."

For Fernandez the goal is to get safely through Winton's famous first corner chicane. "I've seen plenty of carnage as cars battle for position going into that first corner, the aim is to definitely get through this cleanly," Fernandez said.

"Fortunately I'm starting on the fifth row so this makes the job easier, trouble tends to happen at the rear of the grid."