BRIGHTY OUTMANOEUVRES COMPETITION
Media information: Sunday May 31
Strategy won the day for Fujitsu Racing as Jason Bright went from last to fourth, putting in the second-fastest lap time of the day at Symmons Plains this afternoon.
Bright, a former winner at the Tasmanian circuit, kept a cool head amid today’s frantic on-track action despite stalling twice on the grid and falling to practically dead last. From there he pitted on lap one and rejoined in clear air to register lap-after-lap of quick times.
That saw him emerge from the second round of pit stops in contention for a podium and by lap 45 Brighty was on the back of V8 Supercar Championship leader Jamie Whincup, fighting for the lead.
He
matched the leaders’ pace but, on hard tyres, lost a couple of positions in the
final stages to Lee Holdsworth and Fabian Coulthard who were on softs. At the
chequered flag he was seventh, his best result of the season.
Jason Bright
#25
Fujitsu Racing
“One of the challenges at this place is going
down a lap, which is very easy to do. In the first stop I nearly stalled coming
out of the pit box, which made exiting the pits pretty slow. I popped out about
two seconds ahead of Whincup so knew I had to push or go a lap down. That was
the critical thing for our race; I couldn’t afford to go a lap down in case we
had a safety car.
“I got messages early on saying we were in fifth but I was wondering about
whether they had it wrong at that stage. It wasn’t until after the safety car
had come out, and you knew everyone had done their pit stops, that you knew we
were doing pretty good. When I came out of the pits I was only four seconds
behind frosty and had new tyres so I knew we were looking good for a good
result.
“It’s
definitely what we needed. We’ve had a pretty tough start to the year, whether
from mistakes from me or different car problems that we’ve had. It hasn’t done
much for our momentum, so a result like this is golden.”
2009
V8 Supercar Championship Series - Races 7 & 8
SYMMONS PLAINS INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
Result, Race 8
01. Jamie
Whincup, 888
02. Will Davison, HRT
03. Fabian Coulthard, PCR
04. Mark Winterbottom, FPR Falcon
05. Lee Holdsworth, GRM
06. Russell Ingall, PMM
07. Jason Bright, Fujitsu Racing