 Older Article |
[V8SC] Tough WA weekend for Holdsworth
by Lee Holdsworth
Lee Holdsworth - Perth 300, Tough weekend for GRM
24 November, 2009
The latest round of the V8 Supercar Series was held at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth. It was an action packed weekend…. great for the spectators, but not so much for the GRM team.
Previous results would suggest that Barbagallo has not been one of GRM’s strongest events but I was keen to turn this around on the weekend and get some runs on the board.
It was all looking fairly promising after qualifying in the top 10 shoot-out on Saturday. I started the race from seventh position and finished 12th. This may not sound like a good result but we were pleased given that eight of the 11 cars in front had used their sprint tyres at one point. This meant that we would have a better shot for Sunday’s race with our sprint tyres still at hand.
Sadly I also lost one spot in the championship standings to James Courtney after race one but I was confident that I would gain that position back after Sunday’s race (Courtney was one of the drivers who used his sprint tyres in race one).
We decided to make some changes to the car to improve the car for qualifying. However, the changes we made did nothing but hinder the car speed for qualifying and we ended up 15th.
It was a game of strategy from here on in…. who was going to start with the sprint tyres and who was going to save them until the end of the race?
We opted to start with the sprint tyres and it paid off big time! I moved from 15th position to second in just 14 laps and I was making inroads on the leader Garth Tander who was also on the same strategy. After 40 laps I reduced the gap to Tander from six seconds to just over two seconds and we were looking the goods. The gap to third was almost half a lap and we had lapped over half the field!
Just a couple of hundred metres ahead I could see there were a pack of cars fighting it out for position. We were catching them rapidly when all of a sudden two of the cars came together; Bargwanna turned Todd Kelly around into the last corner leaving Kelly parked sideways across racing line on the exit. I saw Kelly move forward at the last second so I swerved to the right to avoid contact but he chose to stop moving forward (I guess he thought I was going to go to the other side of him) leaving me nowhere to go except into the side of his passenger door! The impact was hard enough to put me out of the race. The Kelly car is apparently a write off!
The impact left oil and debris on the racing line causing absolute chaos for those drivers choosing to pit. HRT’s Will Davison fell victim to the oil and slid into the pit lane wall finishing his race and possibly ending his hopes of a championship win in 2009.
What a weekend of ups and downs! It was looking good to change the fortune for the GRM team this weekend. We had a chance to turn our results around but it just wasn’t meant to be. Obviously I wasn’t able to regain my spot in the championship. I now sit ninth in the standings with just one race meeting to go.
The next round is at Homebush street circuit in Sydney in less than two weeks time.
- Lee
| Older Article | |
| Browse 'LEE HOLDSWORTH' | |
