PRESS ROOM

Stone Brothers Racing Top Ten in Bahrain Practice

Round 12, Desert 400, Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain

Practice Report

02 November 2007

Stone Brothers Racing Falcons were inside the top ten after today’s opening practice session of the Desert 400 at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Caltex Racing’s Russell Ingall was eighth fastest at the end of the two-and-a-half hour session, posting his best time of 1:25.8287 seconds in the closing stages of practice on new tyres.

JELD-WEN Motorsport’s James Courtney finished the session just behind his team-mate in ninth position. Courtney headed up the timesheets from the start, only knocked from the top spot when teams started their runs on green rubber with 15 minutes remaining. Courtney also improved on new tyres with a time of 1:25.8504 seconds.

The 3.6km circuit lived up to its reputation of being hard on tyres, with the entire 31-car field struggling for grip. Courtney and Ingall will work with the SBR team overnight in search of a set up that maintains good race pace on used rubber, the pair also keen to tweak the SBR Falcons for tomorrow’s qualifying.

The Caltex Racing and JELD-WEN Motorsport Falcons will be back on track at 11:00am tomorrow for the three-leg elimination style qualifying session followed by the first of three races at 3:00pm.

Russell Ingall, car #9, Caltex Racing

“The Caltex Racing Falcon is a lot better here this year; however the track seems to have a lot less grip, maybe because of lack of use.

“With the tyres going off so quickly, we concentrated on getting some pace out of the first set of tyres today.

“We may not be the speediest but if we have a set up that looks after our tyres we will be able to maintain a good race pace.

“There will be a lot of sad cars here 10 laps into the race; a smarter set up will win the day.”

James Courtney, car #4, JELD-WEN Motorsport

“We had a great start to the session today.

“As predicted, the Bahrain circuit burns up the tyres quickly. It’s difficult to put together a good set up when the car is deteriorating so much each lap.

“I was a bit cautious on our second set of tyres late in the session and didn’t get the most out of them.

“We’ll review it all tonight; there is no reason why we can’t squeeze a few extra tenths out of the JELD-WEN Falcon for qualifying tomorrow.”

Ross Stone, Team Manager, Stone Brothers Racing

“The JELD-WEN Motorsport Falcon was very good out of the box and the Caltex Racing Falcon seems strong on used tyres.

“We have good speed on both cars, most importantly on older tyres.

“You only get two laps on your tyres here; they drop off so quickly, more than at any circuit that we race on.

“Because this is a fly-away round, we have a green set of tyres to finish practice on. We didn’t get as much gain as we would have expected but we will do our homework tonight to sharpen it up for tomorrow.”

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Stone Brothers Racing Top Ten in Bahrain Practice

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