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New Zealand chaos for Fujitsu Racing |
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Written by V8supercars.com.au
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Last weekend’s second 2006 V8 championship round at New Zealand’s
Pukekohe Park Raceway proved to be a tough weekend indeed for Fujitsu
Racing. A number of on-track incidents saw Warren Luff struggle to
climb the leader board, spending the weekend nearer the back of the
pack than previous form had given evidence to.
Practice / Qualifying
Having
only once driven a V8 Supercar at the Pukekohe circuit, Warren spent
the new 2.5hr Friday practice session reacquainting himself with the
nuances of the tricky high-speed layout, where two difficult corners
make all the difference between a good time on the stop watch and a bad
one.
On the short, fast seven-turn circuit, Warren found it
difficult to secure a lap clear from traffic, while also battling an
understeer condition through the final, high-speed corner and ended
qualifying 28th on the grid for Race 1.
Race 1
The first
race began with the Toll Racing Commodore of Rick Kelly stalled on the
grid. Warren launched his Fujitsu Falcon into a gap heading down the
front straight, narrowly avoiding the stranded Kelly, only to be forced
to take further avoiding action when home-town favorite Greg Murphy
ploughed into the wall just before the first turn.
Settling into
a rhythm after the ensuing Safety-Car period, Luff concentrated on
securing a strong result and a decent point’s haul, all the while aware
of the impending reverse grid race – the first of the season.
Good
work by the crew in the compulsory pitstop saw Warren gain one position
before continuing to fight his way home to a less than desirable 24th
position.
Race 2
Luff was eager to make the most of the
reverse grid experience he learned from the Development Series, and was
well placed to do so in position four on the grid. Unfortunately, after
a strong start a mistake on the first lap saw Warren tag the back of
Mark Porter’s Commodore heading into the notoriously difficult hairpin,
which sees cars brake heavily from 270km/h. The tap spun Porter around
and pushed Luff off the track, which caused a chain reaction that
witnessed seven cars heading back to the pits for repairs.
Luff
was given a drive-through penalty for his error and went down a lap,
before the race was stopped on Lap 12 after John Bowe had a mammoth
accident at the notorious 220km/h first turn. Damage to the safety
fencing from the accident was deemed too severe to continue and the
subsequent repairs took an hour to complete before the race was
re-commenced over a shortened distance.
Race 2 was eventually
restarted and determined to put the earlier incident behind him, Luff
was keen to salvage as many points as he could. Unfortunately Warren
fell further behind the pack when Porter returned the favour and spun
him around at the hairpin, tagging the Fujitsu Racing Falcon after
suffering recurring power steering problems.
By race end Warren
managed to bring the Fujitsu Falcon home in 22nd position ruing the
chance of what should have been a better result for the team.
Race 3
The
hits kept on coming in Race 3 when Warren was caught up in another
accident, this time tagged by Tasman Motorsport’s Jason Richards – the
same driver that took Warren out of the second race at the Australian
Grand Prix meeting. Not only did Warren lose position from the touch-up
from the over-enthusiastic Kiwi, but to add insult to injury he
received a Black Flag forcing him into pit lane to allow the team to
remove the loose rear body work deemed to be dangerous by race
officials. The rest of the race proved to be uneventful by comparison
with Warren coming home in 26th and finishing 27th for the round.
In
all, it proved to be a very frustrating weekend for the team. All the
pre-race work and hours that were put in just didn’t pay off. The team
however have put the NZ weekend behind them, confident the planned
changes will soon reap reward.
Team General Manager Chris
Jewell summed it up by saying “We came to New Zealand confident we
would qualify in the top 22 or thereabouts, but Turn Seven just killed
us all weekend and we never found a set-up that gave us the mid-corner
speed we needed. We were losing four-tenths of a second as a result and
finding that time would have placed us in 19th grid spot and given us a
decent chance of maximizing the reverse grid race strategy.”
“We’ll
go over the car to see if something’s fundamentally wrong with it as a
carry over from our Grand Prix crash and rebuild and won’t be surprised
if we uncover something – the car was just too slow, which is in stark
contrast to the speed we’ve shown in the first two outings thus far –
roll on WA”
Driving #25, Warren will be joined by Tony
Ricciardello in #26, for Round 3 of the V8 Supercar Championship Series
to be held at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway on May 12-14.
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