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Front Page
Lowndes Experiences Highs and Lows of Motorsport At Clipsal 500
Staff, Sunday April 8, 2001.
Page 1 of 1
On a day where the course safety car was at the front of the field more times than a race-car, the many incidents played havoc with Gibson Motorsport’s pit-stop strategies.
“It’s more difficult to capitalise on the safety cars when you’re the lead car. Consequently we weren’t able to make the opportunistic pits that others did, and that really came against us,” the disappointed Ford racer said.
“We were running a clean race until lap 42 when I got tagged trying to avoid an accident. The rear left tyre was damaged and rubbing, but we hoped it would fix itself. We moved to seventh position, and were looking good until lap 53 when the damaged tyre burst. By the time we changed it I’d dropped back to 11th, behind Mark (Skaife).”
The 00 Gibson Motorsport Falcon set off on a blitz of the field, as the 26 year-old talent valiantly tried to stay in the hunt. Lowndes set a new lap record on lap 56 of the 78-lap race, in a time of 1 min 25.83 secs.
“A win at this race was worth 360 driver championship points, and we were hungry to claim them. I was in a hurry to pass Skaife and we were having a good old tussle. He’s struggled for pace all weekend, but was blocking quite nicely. I had a crack at the inside line on the exit of turn six, heading to turn seven and it didn’t come off. He turned me around and there was too much damage to the Falcon to continue safely,” Lowndes said.
“Of course we’re disappointed, but all up we’ve had a great weekend, and the Clipsal 500 has been fantastic as usual. We wanted to repeat yesterday’s win, but at least we know we can do it.”
But team principal Fred Gibson never doubted Lowndes’ ability.
“Craig’s the strongest driver in the field. We all knew he could win the race again today, it was just a matter of us being good enough to help him!” Fred Gibson said.
“We had the fastest car on the track today, and we deserved a better result, but you can’t blame a driver for going out giving everything he’s got. Anything that can happen will happen at a race like this and fortunes change in an instant. We’ll move on and concentrate on building up some points at Eastern Creek in three weeks’ time.”
A Lowndes made it to the podium today at the Clipsal 500, despite Craig’s misfortune. Wife Nat Lowndes dominated the five-lap All Female Celebrity Challenge support race to take the win ahead of Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva and Jill Johnson.
For further information contact:
Ben Beazley
Media Coordinator
Ford Racing
Phone: (03) 9533 4455
Mobile: 0417 262 753
e-Mail: ben@segalmedia.com.au
