Queensland: GRM weekend report

Canto scores season-best result for GRM at Queensland Raceway

Reigning V8 Supercar Development Series champion Dean Canto has scored his best result of the 2006 championship so far with 11th-place in the BigPond 400 on the weekend at Queensland Raceway near Ipswich.

The 25-year-old's weekend started quite strongly, narrowly missing out on a berth in the Top 10 Shootout by qualifying 11th. It was the second time in three rounds that Canto has narrowly missed qualifying in the prestigious top 10, having been 12th fastest in round four at Winton.

The Repco Valvoline Cummins driver ran a solid first race, finishing 16h before repeating the result in the reverse-grid race two.

It was a fighting drive from the Melbourne-based, Sydney-born driver, who was involved in a first corner incident and had to power out of a sand trap to rejoin the race.

Coming from last in the field, Canto chased down his rivals and the result left him 14th on the grid for the final 45-lapper.

He improved one spot and finished the race 13th, a good effort that easily could have been a spot in the Top 10 had it not been for the Race 2 first corner incident.

Team-mate Lee Holdsworth qualified for the second meeting in a row in the top 20, taking the #33 Commodore to an 18th-place grid position.

He finished in the same spot in race one, but came to grief in the carnage of race two, forced to retire with front end damage that pushed the radiator up against the engine.

Lining up to start 25th for race three, Holdsworth made up some more spots to finish 20th for the race and 23rd for the round.

The GRM squad will return to the race track for round seven of the series in three weeks' time at Oran Park Raceway in Sydney.

-grm