Konica: Eastern Creek qualifying notes

Andrew Jones Fastest in Eastern Creek Qualifying

Team BOC driver Andrew Jones has finished today's Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series qualifying session at Eastern Creek Raceway with the fastest lap time of 1.32.9976, enough to place his Ford Falcon on pole position for the first of three races tomorrow morning and enough to set a new practice record.

Jones clocked up the fastest lap time on his second last lap of the session, breaking the previous record held by Mark Winterbottom of 1.33.2799, which was set at the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series Eastern Creek round in May last year.

Jones did not have it all his own way in qualifying however, as Super Cheap Auto Racing's Luke Youlden took the lead and the fastest lap time of the day and looked to have pole position all wrapped up towards the end of the qualifying session until dark horse Kevin Mundy pulled out a 1.33.1292 in his Actron Air Ford Falcon.

Mundy's misfortunes from earlier in the week when he had a motorcycle accident and did not look like he was actually going to drive at the round four event this weekend, all changed this afternoon when his lap time was enough to put him on the front row of the grid for race one for the first time this year, and only missed out on his first ever pole position by the smallest of margins.

Jones is going into this weekend's round as one of the favourites, looking to repeat his sterling performance at the last round of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series at Winton Motor Raceway when he took out the round win ahead of Youlden and Team Fujitsu's Jose Fernandez.

"It would be great to win two rounds in a row as no-one has done so far this year," Jones said. "We will really be pushing for that this weekend and to put us in a really competitive position for the reminder of the series."

"We made a couple of changes today and put on new tyres and obviously that had an immediate effect with the car's speed but other than that, we didn't get a massive gain straight away but the car can quite easily get quicker and quicker every time we get out there."

Current Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series leader Youlden will sit on the second row of the grid with Team Fujistu's Owen Kelly and TKR/Hydraulink Racing's Mark Porter and Gulf Western Oil/Jayco's Matthew White on the third row.

All of the excitement of the Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series continues at Eastern Creek Raceway tomorrow with Race One commencing at 11.25pm.

<pre> SUNDAY 30TH MAY 9.30am - 9.50am Warm Up 11.25am Race One - 12 Laps 1.20pm Race Two - 12 Laps (Full Reverse Grid) 3.10pm Race Three Race End Podium Presentation

KONICA MINOLTA V8 SUPERCAR SERIES QUALIFYING TOP TEN 1. #19 Andrew Jones Team BOC 1.32.9976 2. #56 Kevin Mundy PCR/Actron Air 1.33.1292 3. #30 Luke Youlden Super Cheap Auto Racing 1.33.1676 4. #71 Owen Kelly Team Fujitsu 1.33.3323 5. #111 Mark Porter TKR/Hydraulink Racing 1.33.4142 6. #28 Matthew White Gulf Western Oil/Jayco 1.33.5758 7. #46 Alan Gurr Holden Young Lions 1.33.5880 8. #27 Cameron McLean Howard Racing 1.33.6323 9. #81 Jose Fernandez Team Fujitsu 1.33.7096 10. #64 Tony D'Alberto Independent Race Cars 1.33.7630

KONICA MINOLTA V8 SUPERCAR SERIES TOP TEN 1. Luke Youlden Super Cheap Auto Racing 491 pts 2. Matthew White Gulf Western Oil/Jayco Racing 457 pts 3. Jose Fernandez Team Fujitsu 441 pts 4. Cameron McLean Howard Racing 441 pts 5. Mark Porter TKR/Hydraulink Racing 423 pts 6. Andrew Jones Team BOC 391 pts 7. Owen Kelly Team Fujitsu 386 pts 8. Adam Wallis Rupprecht Motorsport 377 pts 9. Grant Elliot Sydney Star Racing 358 pts 10. Gary MacDonald Kanga Loaders Racing 330 pts

-avesco-