Sandown: FPR Friday report

FPR in Sandown 500 Practice Top Ten

September 10, 2004 - Ford Performance Racing (FPR) ends the opening day of the Sandown 500 in the top ten with Glenn Seton's fastest lap of 1:12.3572s placing the CAT FPR Falcon 9th.

The double Champion driver is sharing the CAT FPR Falcon with triple Champion team mate Craig Lowndes at this first of two V8 Supercar endurance races for the season.

Seton's performance today was impressive given the fact that he is recovering from a stomach virus contracted earlier in the week. Lowndes' fastest time of the morning practice session saw him ranked 14th (1:12.0231s), he being one of the few that did not run on new tyres at all during the session.

Ford Credit FPR Falcon drivers Alain Menu and Adam Macrow drove solidly throughout today's two practice sessions which were held in cool and mainly overcast conditions.

Menu used the opening session to become accustomed to the 3.1 kilometre Sandown circuit with a best lap time of 1:13.4517s, while Macrow's fastest lap time today was 1:13.9072s. Both Macrow and Menu's practice sessions were interrupted by an engine misfiring problem which was quickly rectified.

Today's fastest lap times at Sandown were set by Ford V8 Supercar drivers. Marcos Ambrose led the charge (1:10.60) in the morning session, followed by Russell Ingall (1:10.7953s) and David Besnard (1:11.0219s).

FPR returns to the circuit for the third practice session tomorrow (Saturday) at 9:45am with qualifying scheduled for 12:40pm followed by the top ten shootout at 3:15pm.

#6 Craig Lowndes - "We had a good run today. The car is responding to the changes we have made and so far Glenn and I are happy with our progress."

#6 Glenn Seton - "I'm happy with the overall balance of the car. We have a bit of understeer to deal with, but the car balance is generally very good. I had lots of interruptions during the second session that made it hard to set a faster time as I kept catching slower drivers."

#5 Alain Menu - "I would have liked more time in the car today, but I am pleased with my start to the weekend as I have never raced here before. The circuit has some tricks to it and I am sure that with some more laps I will only get faster."

#5 Adam Macrow - "The car felt a lot better on new tyres in the second session and we also made a major improvement with the brakes. The trouble was the number of red flags and cars going off during the second session that did not give me a single clear lap to try and set a faster time. It was frustrating as I have no doubt that I could have been faster today."

FPR Chief Engineer John Russell - "We worked through our program with few issues. Craig and Glenn seem comfortable with their set-up and Adam and Alain have further work to do adjusting to the car and achieving an optimum car."

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