Winton: Fujitsu Racing Saturday notes

BRIGHT'S LAP RECORD STILL STANDS

Sprint tyres or not, nobody could beat the 2002 V8 Supercar Championship lap record of Fujitsu Racing's Jason Bright today around Winton Motor Raceway.

That detail was not the only positive to emerge from Race Five of the championship as Bright got to grips with Dunlop's new, high-grip, short-life tyre, introduced today.

The new addition presented a headache to tacticians but Fujitsu Racing narrowed its race strategy options to two, with the decision resting on whether or not a safety car would be called. Bright gambled 'no', putting the soft tyres on at the first opportunity and capitalising on its 3secs-per-lap advantage.

Running sixth with ten laps to go Bright looked to have made the right call until Jason Bargwanna beached himself in the sand trap. The resultant safety car stripped Fujitsu Racing of its on-track advantage and Bright found himself at the mercy of those cars that had pitted later onto the soft compound, whilst his tyres were rapidly fading.

From there he went backwards to finish 14th but was encouraged by the fact his fastest lap was just 0.04s off man-of-the-moment Jamie Whincup's best effort.

Qualifying for tomorrow's Race Six starts at 10.35am.

Jason Bright

#25 Fujitsu Racing

"Because practice didn't quite go to plan we went into qualifying a little bit blind. The first set of tyres were quite bad; we'd used them in practice. Then we put our first set of greens on and straight away I knew it was better.

"For the race our initial scenario was to start on hard tyres and if there was a safety car mid-race, go to the soft. When I saw so many people were starting on hard tyres though, there was more potential in starting on the soft. By that stage we'd already left the pits so we decided to come in on the first lap, go to the soft tyre immediately and get some clear track and quick laps.

"One strategy was hoping for a safety car and one was hoping there wouldn't be; we went for the second option and the plan was going fantastic until Bargwanna got it wrong. It was a gamble either way and we just didn't have the pace at the end there.

"I thought more people had used the soft tyres in today's race than actually did, which really hurts us for tomorrow's race. It seems Steve Johnson, Greg Murphy, Dale Wood, Paul Dumbrell, Marcus Marshall, Tim Slade, Jack Perkins and Todd Kelly still have them for tomorrow, so qualifying is going to be even more important than usual."

-credit: fr