Kelly Racing showed a strong turn of pace in practice and qualifying today, but could not covert it into results during Race 8 of the Supercars Championship at Symmons Plains Raceway today.
Castrol Racing’s Rick Kelly was seventh in the final practice session this morning, giving him a direct run into the second qualifying session. He would eventually claim 11th on the grid.
Kelly remained in touch of the top 10 in the opening phase of the race, however, would cross the line in 15th.
Plus Fitness Racing’s Andre Heimgartner was involved in a qualifying incident that hampered his chances of a higher place. He qualified 18th, and dropped to the tail of the field at the start after an incident with Lee Holdsworth at the first turn.
Heimgartner chipped his way through the field to finish 17th.
Team Harvey Norman driver Simona de Silverstro qualified 23rd and finished 21st after some battles for position.
Rookie Supercars driver Garry Jacobson qualified 22nd but struck electrical problems mid race. The Kelly Racing crew worked hard to fix the problem to allow Jacobson to get back into the race and finish, although did not complete enough laps to be classified.
The Supercars Championship has just a few days before the cars are rolled out next weekend for Round 4 at the famous Phillip Island Circuit.
QUOTES
Rick Kelly #15 Castrol Racing : “We certainly made gains in this morning’s practice and qualifying and I was confident of being somewhat of a threat in the race Obviously, it didn’t go to plan and 15th isn’t where we want to be. We’re disappointed. Our qualifying set-up was a difficult beast to drive in the race. I knew it five laps into the 82 lap race. But we live and learn and move quickly onto Phillip Island.”
Andre Heimgartner #7 Plus Fitness : “Our pace wasn’t too bad, but I got caught up in someone else’s accident in qualifying The start of the race wasn’t ideal either. I got driven off the road and that put us down the back again. I was able to pick a few of them off in the race, but really, we should have started higher and I feel we could have made a better run towards the top 10.”
Simona De Silvestro #78 Team Harvey Norman : “We changed so many things thing weekend, but we still weren’t able to make an impression forward We’ll have a good look over it all, find a way forward and turn it around. I love Phillip Island. It’s one of the best tracks we go to, so it will be good to dust off this weekend and move quickly on.”
Garry Jacobson #3 RABBLE.Club : “An electrical problem halted us today, which was a shame for everyone We still didn’t really have the pace. There’s lots for us to work on and I’m hoping as a team that we will get through it and start moving forward.”
Press release Kelly Racing
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