by

1^st March, 2002

Race One at AGP a Bright start to Supercar year

Jason Bright scored a small but significant victory in his likely year-long battle with champion teammate Mark Skaife today, winning the opening race of the Grand Prix V8 Supercar Challenge.

As the Ferraris dominated early practice for Sunday’s Formula One main event, Bright’s red rocketship also led from the front, winning the 30-minute race by almost four seconds from Steven Johnson and Russell Ingall.

After squeezing past Skaife at the start, Ingall challenged Johnson for second before the race's only safety car on lap four, to recover Rick Kelly’s beached Young Lion Commodore, stalled his forward momentum.

Skaife had an eventful afternoon, running wide on a corner early in the race, relegating him to seventh.  He recovered to grab a spot in the top five, setting the fastest lap of the race along the way.

Marcos Ambrose didn’t win friends when he spun at turn 14 on the opening lap, brushing past his teammate David Besnard before clashing with an irate Larry Perkins.  Besnard continued unscathed, but Ambrose and Perkins finished 13^th and 26^th respectively.

“I made a mistake on the second-last turn and spun and that was basically my race,” Ambrose said.

Paul Radisich climbed four positions to finish fourth, while K-Mart racer Greg Murphy stormed through the field from 17^th after a wretched qualifying performance to claim seventh.

Not to be outdone, Cameron McLean, starting on the third-last row of the grid, scrambled up the timing board to finish 16^th – a 13-position gain.

Mark Larkham, who started from the rear of grid when his Orrcon Falcon misfired, OzEmail Racing’s John Bowe, debutant Max Wilson and Cameron McConville all failed to finish.

After the race, Bright said the new Dunlop control tyre continued to perform well.

"The Dunlops seem a lot more durable (than last year's Bridgestone tyre), I didn't expect to be doing low 59sec laps at the end of the race," he said.

Tomorrow’s second of three races follows final Formula One qualifying at 2:25pm.

 AGP V8 SUPERCAR CHALLENGE - RACE ONE 

Detailed race results are available  here . or go...