Hamilton: TeamVodafone Friday notes

Lowndes carries momentum through Hamilton practice TeamVodafone has recorded mixed results on the opening day of the V8 Supercars first offshore event for 2009 - the Hamilton 400 in New Zealand. Craig Lowndes was fourth fastest in practice while ...

Lowndes carries momentum through Hamilton practice

TeamVodafone has recorded mixed results on the opening day of the V8 Supercars first offshore event for 2009 - the Hamilton 400 in New Zealand. Craig Lowndes was fourth fastest in practice while Jamie Whincup ended the day 21st on the timesheets.

Lowndes carried his AGP form across the Tasman, lapping consistently inside the top four throughout both sessions. The TeamVodafone driver sat atop the timesheets for much of the second practice before finishing three tenths of a second off the fastest time of the day set by Will Davison.

"It is a great start to the weekend," Lowndes said. " I am very comfortable in the car, it got better and better as the sessions progressed."

"We made a lot of changes over the two sessions and I am pleased to say that 90% of them worked, so we have a very good direction to go in."`"A lot of what we did today was to try and work on drive and rear tyre wear. So far it is all very encouraging for tomorrow's qualifying," Lowndes acknowledged.

Teammate and reigning V8 Supercar Champion Jamie Whincup lost a lot time in the first practice session while his crew worked on issue with the brakes on his TeamVodafone V8 Supercar.

This was a huge blow for Whincup, who didn't get to race on the Hamilton street circuit last year after a qualifying incident ruled him out of the event.

The defending Champion was looking forward to getting as much track time as possible ahead of qualifying but said he would work hard with Engineer Mark Dutton tonight to make sure he is up to speed tomorrow.

"It was a tough day," Whincup admitted. "I was behind the eight ball with a brake issue in the first session and never really recovered."

"On a track where I didn't get to race last year, missing out on nearly a whole session is a double whammy and it affected us quite badly."

"Like always I will do everything I can tonight to get up to speed so we are competitive in qualifying tomorrow," Whincup said.

Qualifying for the first 200km race will be held at 11.00am (local time) with the race to get underway at 3.05pm (local time).