A jubilant Jason Richards said Darwin is fast becoming one of his favourite tracks after he set the quickest time in qualifying for the second year in a row.
The Team BOC driver recorded a time of 1:09.9079 to enter the top ten shoot out in provisional pole but took on a bad set of tyres and dropped to tenth after his hot lap.
During the race Richards did not put a foot wrong and finished fourth, narrowly missing out on a podium after being chased down by Shane Van Gisbergen.
Qualifying for Race 14 starts tomorrow at 12pm CST.
Jason Richards
Team BOC
“I’ve always loved Darwin and it was awesome to have a repeat of last year for the first part of qualifying. I guess it was tight but I wasn’t totally surprised. I knew I was going to make the top ten, just not how far into it I’d get. To be P1 is always a great feeling.
“In the shoot out it was a totally different car than I had in qualifying; it was like it was a bad set of tyres. It wasn’t turning hard enough and had no rear grip.
“In the race I had a wicked start; off-the-line was really good and I had very good pace for the first 10 laps. Then we had a ripper stop on lap 11; we were the first car to come in and that gained us about four or five spots. We only put two rear tyres on though and Shane Van Gisbergen put four and raced through the pack. It was a wry decision from his point of view.”
Brad Jones
Team Co-Owner
“Fantastic result! I felt JR deserved a podium. They ran the gauntlet with the pit stop; we were the only car to stop as early as we did and it helped us jump four cars and put us in a very strong position for the race. Shane Van Gisbergen took four tyres and he ran us down. Other than that we would have been on the podium for sure. Jason didn’t put a foot wrong the whole race; it was executed throughout the whole team unbelievably well.”
Jason Richards V8 STATS
Current championship position: 13
Current championship points: 816
V8 Supercar Championship race starts: 276
Previous best Darwin qualifying: POLE (2009)
Previous best Darwin result: 2nd in race three and fourth overall (2006)
2010 Skycity Triple Crown V8 Supercar Championship Race 13&14
HIDDEN VALLEY RACEWAY
QUALIFYING, RACE 13
01 Mark Winterbottom, FPR, 1:09.6854
02 Jamie Whincup, 888, +0.1479
03 Tim Slade, SBR, +0.1982
04 Garth Tander, HRT, +0.2520
05 Todd Kelly, Kelly Racing, +0.3330
06 James Courtney, DJR, +0.5227
07 Shane Van Gisbergen, SBR, +0.6507
08 Paul Dumbrell, RNR, +0.6711
09 Craig Lowndes, 888, +0.7497
10 Jason Richards, Team BOC, +0.8634
RACE 13
01 Mark Winterbottom, FPR
02 Jamie Whincup, 888
03 Shane Van Gisbergen, SBR
04 Jason Richards, Team BOC
05 James Courtney, DJR
06 Tim Slade, SBR
07 Craig Lowndes, 888
08 Paul Dumbrell, RNR
09 Todd Kelly, Kelly Racing
10 Garth Tander, HRT
