Sandown: Kelly Racing Friday report

BARGWANNA AND RICCIARDELLO WORK ON PACE AT SANDOWN

Kelly Racing drivers Jason Bargwanna and Tony Ricciardello have both worked hard to improve their pace in preparations for the Norton 360 Sandown Challenge at Sandown International Raceway in Melbourne, Victoria today.

Bargwanna was trialling new components and set-up options in his #11 Rock Commodore in practice today, ending the day in 21st place on the timesheets, one spot ahead of Jack Daniel's Racing driver and Kelly Racing team-mate Rick Kelly.

Tony Ricciardello was 29th fastest overall in practice today but was buoyed by improvement late in the day, putting the #16 Stratco Commodore in 27th place in the final practice session of the day.

James Courtney was fastest in practice at Sandown today ahead of Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes.

KELLY RACING QUOTEBOARD:

JASON BARGWANNA - #11 Rock Holden Commodore

"The nature of the Sandown circuit means that the times are very close," said Jason Bargwanna.

"We have new shock absorbers in the Rock Commodore this weekend that we have never used before so we are a little bit behind in terms of getting the most out of the car with the set-up.

"If we can just get our heads around the new set-up tomorrow and tune the car to our liking we should be a lot closer to the front in qualifying."

TONY RICCIARDELLO - #16 Stratco Holden Commodore

"'Stu' (#16 Stratco Commodore Race Engineer Stuart McDonald) and I tried a few things today and I worked hard to build up some rhythm," said Tony Ricciardello.

"I concentrated a lot on improving under brakes and power down onto the two long straights is very important here as well.

"We evaluated the Stratco Commodore in race conditions as well when on older tyres and we generally made progress.

"There was improvement in the third and fourth practice sessions so we are pleased with that. Now we need to see if we can get a good speed gain when we use new tyres in qualifying."

-source: kelly racing