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V8SDS: Protecnica Racing Mallala Saturday notes
ALAJAJIAN NINTH IN MALLALA QUALIFYING Protecnica Racing have continued their impressive arrival in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series, with team driver Chris Alajajian today qualifying ninth for Round 5 at Mallala Motorsport Park in Adelaide. The ...
Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:19 AM
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ALAJAJIAN NINTH IN MALLALA QUALIFYING
Protecnica Racing have continued their impressive arrival in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series, with team driver Chris Alajajian today qualifying ninth for Round 5 at Mallala Motorsport Park in Adelaide.
The team worked steadily through the two practice sessions, with Alajajian setting the 14th fastest time in each, and recording a best time of 1:11.0957 in Practice 2. In qualifying, the 19 year-old upped the ante; improving his pace again and sitting comfortably inside the top ten.
In the end, Alajajian's best lap of 1:09.5464 aboard the Jack Hillermans / Elf Lubricants Commodore was good enough for ninth place, just .6972 of a second from pole position.
"We made good gains in setup during the practice sessions," said the Sydneysider. "Our pace was getting better and better, and the changes we made were positive.
"The qualifying result was promising, but it possibly could have been better. The gearbox has been re-built since Oran Park and I was having a couple of little problems engaging gears.
"Midway through the session I third fastest and up on my previous fastest lap, but had a compression lockup while trying to go down through the gears at Turn 5 and spun."
The result equals Alajajian's ninth place in qualifying in the most recent round of the series at Oran Park Raceway. Having made their debut at Queensland Raceway in July, it is Alajajian and Protecnica Racing's second top ten qualifying result from their three rounds in the series.
"Ninth is a good place to be on the grid for the first race tomorrow," The Chris said. "I know there is still some time in my driving to find and get more speed out of the car, so we'll look through all the data and have a good think about it tonight.
"The car was great in qualifying and we know that we can be competitive in the races, so hopefully tomorrow we can put together three good, clean races and have a good day."
Race day tomorrow kicks off at 10am with the 16-lap Race 1, to be followed by Race 2 (16 laps, reverse-grid) and Race 3 (28 laps).
"It was a good day for us," said Protecnica Racing team owner Scott Anderson. "The practice sessions were productive and that set us up well for qualifying.
"Our pace was good but we had a bit of bad luck, where we sent Chris out with the wrong tyre pressures for the second half of the session. It's good to be in the top ten again and we'll race well from there tomorrow."
-credit: pr
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