BRIGHT: 'LOOK HOW FAR WE'VE COME'
Broken steering did not stop Team BOC's Jason Bright battling for a podium at The Clipsal 500 this afternoon.
Bright sustained the damage on lap one but persevered to make his way up to P3 by lap 59, when a safety car was called.
The crew took a massive gamble by not pitting for fuel and, luckily, managed to stretch out the amount they had left to make the chequered flag.
Team-mate Jason Bargwanna was sitting 10th when the safety car was called with comfortably enough fuel to make the end.
Qualifying for tomorrow's 250km race starts at 10.45am.
Jason Bright
Team BOC #08
"I got a reasonable start and went into Turn One with Paul Dumbrell. Stevie Johnson forced him wide and I hit the curbs, which bent the steering. It was affecting us massively during the race. It was different on the left to the right-handers and just felt weird. I had no braking strength and nearly went off at the last corner many times.
"The fact that we can come fourth despite those problems is a sign of how far we've come. If we had that sort of problem last year we would have finished 15-20th. It's the same with qualifying. Not everything went right for us today but we still got into the top ten. Last year that would have been 20th.
"When I realized I'd bent the steering my main concern was to bring the car home and hope for a top ten. Then, when that last safety car came, we were out of our window as far as fuel goes but I could see the guys in front were taking the gamble. The team was calling me in to pit but I said 'no, we've got to take the gamble. ' Luckily it paid off. "
Jason Bargwanna
Team BOC #14
"We pitted when Courtney went into the fence early on, expecting a safety car that never came. Because we rolled the dice, and it didn't work, we were playing catch up from then on. The strategy was to keep as much fuel in it as possible and hopefully it worked for us in the end.
"With the second-last safety car, we did the calculations and believed we were the only car in the top ten that would make it to the end, but then the safety car went on and on and on and on! Everyone conserved fuel and we ended 10th.
"I think we've proven our car is a top ten potential; we've just got to qualify better tomorrow. "
-source: boc
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