23 Jul STRONG WEEKEND AT HOME FOR AUTOBARN LOWNDES RACING
Craig Lowndes drove the Autobarn Lowndes Racing #888 Holden Commodore to a pair of strong finishes in the top 10 at Queensland Raceway over the weekend.
At the latest round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Craig stormed through the field to third in Saturday’s Race 19, and then backed that up with a strong run to eighth in Sunday’s Race 20.
“We learnt a lot this weekend, it was a positive weekend, we’ll move on to Sydney Motorsport Park next and see what we can do,” Craig Lowndes said.
FRIDAY
- Steve Richards does first co-driver session
- Craig 3rd fastest in Practice 1
- Craig 9th fastest in Practice 2
“It wasn’t a bad day. The car was strong from the off with Steve (Richards) in the car. We were in a good spot. We tried a new tyre, like everyone did, at the end and unfortunately it unbalanced the car. We had such a good balance on a used tyre. We were in the top 10, but we know there’s a lot more in it, so we’ve got a little bit to work towards with qualifying in the sense of the new tyre. As a race car, the race run we did was good. The car was consistent and looked after its tyres, so I got a lot of positives out of today. We’ll just work on the green tyre, one-lap run.”
SATURDAY
- Craig 3rd fastest in Practice 3
- Craig qualifies 10th for Race 19
- Craig finishes 3rd in Race 19
“We got a good start – we tried to follow Shane through, he had a ripper start. We had a good battle at the beginning. The car was working well but we got caught up in a bit of traffic just before our pit stop. We would have liked to have stayed out a bit longer, but it was a good choice. We pitted, changed tyres and from there we just had to manage the car pace and balance, and it really worked out well. Right at the end we had no rear tyre left, which allowed Fabian (Coulthard) to catch up and Jamie (Whincup) was closing in fast because he obviously had fresher tyres. Thankfully, I was able to get out of turn six with just enough speed to get across the (finish) line (ahead). It was touch and go whether I was going to get third! It’s a fantastic result for the team and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
SUNDAY
- Craig qualifies 8th for Race 20
- Craig finishes 8th in Race 20
“It was another good day for us. We improved in qualifying, we ended up eighth, and we improved the car over yesterday’s race. Our race itself, we’ll obviously analyse it. We got caught in traffic early on, we opted to come in and do an earlier stop, but in the end it made it difficult in the middle stint. We had traffic for most of it, which is what hurt us the most, not being able to flow the car and look after the tyres as much as we normally would. That was ultimately what put us behind the eight ball a little bit. That last stint was really good, I looked after the car, drove the thing as straight as I could and brought it home strong in eighth. We didn’t improve, but we didn’t lose any spots, which was obviously the main thing.”