Queensland: Orrcon Racing Saturday report

ORRCON RACING SHOWS PROMISE IN QUALIFYING

Larkham -- Orrcon Racing completed another step in the right direction during today's qualifying session for the Queensland 300 with both drivers recording their second best qualifying effort of the year.

Buoyed in confidence after qualifying for a career first top ten shootout in the previous round in Darwin Mark Winterbottom qualified in 12th position, a mere 0.03 seconds behind the time set by tenth placed Steven Ellery.

Such was the intensity of the qualifying session Winterbottom's team-mate Jason Bargwanna set a time less than half a tenth of a second behind him and will start tomorrow's 90-lap race four positions further back in 16th position.

Marcos Ambrose claimed his fifth straight pole position at Queensland Raceway ahead of Craig Lowndes and Russell Ingall.

Tomorrow's 90-lap race begins at 1:45pm and will include two compulsory pit stops, one each for a change in tyres and refueling.

Mark Winterbottom
Orrcon Racing Falcon #20
Position: 12th
Difference to 1st: +0.5070

"Today was a good day. The car is definitely good in a race package but we lost a bit of time during qualifying with some understeer entering the turns.

"We are pretty happy with what we expect the car will do in the race, so I don't think we will change much tonight. We still have a minor problem with the front left wheel locking which could cost you a race because it could flat spot a tyre if it continues.

"The rear tyre life is really good, we will try and concentrate on keeping it that way while looking to slightly improve an already pretty strong set up."

Jason Bargwanna
Orrcon Racing Falcon #10
Position: 16th
Difference to 1st: 0.5585

"Obviously it is an extremely close grid, as we come to expect everytime we race here! We missed the shootout by less than a tenth of a second so we are not that far away.

"We have got a good race package but probably got hurt a little bit by being in the first qualifying group as the track seemed to get a little bit quicker in the second session.

"It is a long race tomorrow and the aim is to get into a consistent groove and to gain a solid result for the team."

Jamie Wattam
Team Engineer

"The cars weren't bad today, we made an improvement on yesterday and are confident that we have a good race package. We just needed to get a little bit more speed out of them in qualifying to climb a few spots and could have had both cars in the shootout.

"Overall we are quite happy with the car set up and will simply go through our normal pre-race preparation overnight with confidence that the car speed is quite good, and consistent."

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