NRC Racing Mallala qualifying report

August 11, 2001 - Canberra V8 Supercar driver Dale Brede has qualified 4th for the first of three V8 Supercar races tomorrow to decide the final round of the Konica Series at Adelaide's Mallala Motorsport Park.

The 25 year old was on the pace from the two morning practice sessions, setting the third and fourth fastest laps of each session.

Held in fine and warm conditions, Brede battled with series hard chargers Simon Wills, Paul Dumbrell and Michael Simpson over the top four grid positions during a highly competitive session. All of the top ten Konica Series drivers' eclipsed the lap record set by David Besnard at Mallala last season.

Kiwi Simon Wills scored Pole Position with his fastest lap of 1:08.2309s ahead of rival Paul Dumbrell -1:08.3276s, with Michael Simpson - 1:08.6334s, narrowly ahead of the NRC Racing VT Commodore V8 Supercar driver with his time of 1:08.7956s. Owen Kelly and Leanne Ferrier made up the top six qualifiers.

Brede made the most out of a series of mechanical improvements made by his team prior to this important final race of the Konica V8 Supercar Series.

"The best thing about today was that the car was good from the word go. We didn't have to play catch up at all, so we kept getting faster with every session. This made my job much easier and today's result gives us four out of six rounds where we have qualified within the Konica Series top four. We have done a great job today." Brede said.

"The VT is a bit of a handful here at Mallala, you certainly have to work hard to be fast and the car set up needs to be 100 per cent right," He added.

According to team owner Arthur Abrahams, it has been a very satisfying day at the track.

"It is great to see that the team has been able to anticipate what we needed to be fast here at Mallala and Dale has driven consistently fast. We can only hope that our best results of the season await us tomorrow, as we know that we have the speed to race with the best of them," He said. <pre>

QUALIFYING RESULTS - TOP 6

1. Simon Wills - 1:08.2309s 2. Paul Dumbrell - 1:08.3276s 3. Michael Simpson - 1:08.6334s 4. Dale Brede - 1:08.7956s 5. Owen Kelly - 1:09.0501s 6. Leanne Ferrier - 1:09.1281s

-NRCR