Coulthard laps up new track record

MOTORSPORT: Drama off the track was replicated on it at Bathurst yesterday as V8 Championship leader Jamie Whincup crashed out in qualifying and Fabian Coulthard grabbed provisional pole for tomorrow’s ‘great race’ with another new lap record.

With the shadow of Ford’s possible exit from the sport, perhaps as early as 2016, hanging over Mt Panorama, defending champion and Ford Performance Racing’s No.1 man Mark Winterbottom peeled off a record time of 2min 05.9011sec in the second practice session, lowering the mark set by FPR teammate David Reynolds in practice the previous day.

But with a resurfaced track from last year, and perfect racing conditions in the afternoon qualifying session, Coulthard went even quicker, recording a 2.05.6080 lap to grab pole.

The New Zealander said he was thrilled with the effort, and said it would set the tone for tomorrow’s big race.

“Track lap record… it takes a bit to get me excited, but I’m excited,” Coulthard said. “It’s a tough lap. The way the surface is you’ve really got to commit. There wasn’t a hell of a lot left in that lap – you have to win it or bin it.”

The only other driver to get into the ‘05s’ was fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, just .09 secs behind Coulthard.

Dale Wood was third, with Winterbottom – who sat at the top of the times for most of the session – fourth.

Scott McLaughlin, Jason Bright, Jack Perkins, James Moffat, Garth Tander and Craig Lowndes completed the top 10. The final starting order for the top 10 will be decided in this afternoon’s Top 10 Shootout.

Some big names missed out – notably James Courtney (11th) and Chaz Mostert (14th) – as well as four-time winner Jamie Whincup who crashed out mid-session.

Whincup will start at the back of the grid with Reynolds, who also hit the wall. But both teams said they were confident the cars would be ready for the start of the race.

Whincup admitted that with the car not performing well for the previous two days, he had simply been pushing too hard.

“I’ve got to put my hand up – driver error,” he said.

“I’ve been a little bit slow through ‘The Cutting’ all weekend, so I was just trying to find the extra time and push a bit harder. Lost the rear end through the kink and ended up hitting the wall.

“Unfortunately I’ve had experience going into that wall. There’s a gate into someone’s house that doesn’t mend up that well – that’s what did most of the damage to the front end on the car.

“After having a good look at it, it was nowhere near as bad as I would’ve thought. I thought there could be chassis damage, but, to be honest, touch wood, it’s all fairly well bolt on stuff.”

Meanwhile, FPR team boss Tim Edwards tried to hose down speculation about the manufacturer’s future in the V8 Supercars Championship.

In an interview on Fox Sports, he said: “I can’t talk about what Ford’s intentions are at this stage as we’re still negotiating with them about the term of our agreement going forward. I’m certainly hopeful that we’ll be racing Fords for some time to come.”

– APN SPORTS BUREAU