Ipswich: Stone Brothers Racing pratice notes

Good start for Stone Brothers Racing in Qld 500.

Stone Brothers Racing¹s David Besnard and Marcos Ambrose have made a solid start in their quest for victory in this weekend¹s VIP Petfoods Queensland 500 at Queensland Raceway, near Ipswich.

Besnard and his teammate Simon Wills were fourth overall after today¹s two practice sessions in their Caltex Havoline Ford while Ambrose and Paul Weel were seventh.

Besnard and Wills were quickest in the opening session with a lap of one minute and 11.36 seconds, but were hampered by a clutch problem in session two.

Despite that, they still managed to produce the seventh quickest time and stamp themselves as confident top 15 shootout contenders tomorrow.

³Overall it has been a pretty consistent start,² said Besnard, who qualified second at the event last year in his Caltex Havoline entry. ³I am looking forward to having a decent crack tomorrow on a new set of tyres. ³Simon is doing a strong job and I feel confident about the weekend.²

Ambrose was delighted with the performance of his Pirtek Falcon which clocked a best lap of 1:11.60.

³I am happy with where we are,² said Ambrose. ³We have been running around on old daggy tyres and just checking everything out.

³Tomorrow and Sunday will be new days and Paul (Weel) and I are looking forward to them.²

Young Lion Rick Kelly was quickest today with a time of one minute and 11.07 seconds followed by Mark Skaife (1:11.14) and Paul Morris (1:11.23).

This will be the team¹s last hit out before heading to Bathurst¹s Mt Panorama for the Bob Jane T-Marts 1000 on October 10-13.

WEEKEND SCHEDULE

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14: Practice session 3: 9.55am-10.40am Qualifying session 1: 12.35pm-1pm (top 50-percent) Qualifying session 2: 1.05pm-1.30pm (bottom 50-percent) Top 15 shoot out: 3.15pm-4pm SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15: Warm-up: 10.30-10.50am Race: 1pm (161 laps)

* Network Ten will televise this weekend¹s race from Noon to 5p on Sunday

-sbr-