IRWIN Racing Winton Saturday Report

ALEX DAVISON SIXTH AT WINTON

Some smart driving, a competitive car and a fast pit stop have helped IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison to finish sixth at Winton Raceway today.

Starting from 13th, Davison had one of the standout drives of the day. He was able to attack, he put pressure on the drivers ahead of him and continually looked like he could pass.

With a safety car on the opening lap preventing the normal frantic jostling for position, the grid settled and it looked like the race might be less than exciting, but soft tyre degradation saw several of the front runners suffering.

Alex Davison

Photo by: Stone Brothers Racing

Davison’s IRWIN backed Falcon suffered extreme tyre wear in Perth three weeks ago, but the team learnt from that event and the result was a stronger V8 Supercar.

A fast car and a fast pit stop saw Davison jump four cars during the pit stop period, then he had the late race pace to pass Garth Tander and Jason Bright and could have passed the struggling Paul Dumbrell had he been closer.

It was a fine race effort by Davison and a performance which maintains his eighth place in the championship. Such were today’s results there are only 108 points between second and eighth.

Qualifying for the 11th race of the V8 Supercar season starts at 11.05am tomorrow morning followed by the second, longer race of the weekend at 1.5pm.

What IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison had to say:

“The IRWIN Falcon was really good, most importantly it looked after its tyres really well, a million times better than Perth, and that's where we were strong today. Towards the end of that first stint we really pulled those guys in. The cars that pitted early didn’t jump us in the pits, which is normally the case, because we had good speed. In that last stint it was the same deal for the first half of the stint. I didn’t push, I tried to save the tyres in the hope they would all come back to me, which they did. I got a bit tangled up with (Garth) Tander, I buggered that move up, and Bright got through. I then passed both those guys, but Dumbrell got too far up the road, I could have got passed him had I not messed up the first attempt to pass Tander. In any case it's solid points which is what is important at this stage.”

What IRWIN Engineer Daniel Kroehn had to say:

“We were head scratching a little bit after Perth, we had good speed but it didn’t translate into speed over race distance. IRWIN Racing came back today, consolidated a really good qualifying spot with an excellent race performance. We are learning more about the IRWIN Ford and Alex (Davison) is learning how to drive it. As a team we are continually moving forward. Once we get it all together, both qualifying and the race, we’ll be challenging for that top step of the podium, which could happen sooner rather than later.”

-source: irwin racing