Coulthard just misses home win in New Zealand

After qualifying third for both of today's races at Pukekohe Lockwood Racing's Fabian Coulthard almost converted the first into a win but it was not to be.

Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing

Photo by: Edge Photographics

In the final race of the day Coulthard lost a position off the start and battled all race with Garth Tander and Jamie Whincup but was denied the podium.

Team-mate Jason Bright won the race, earning the team its coveted Jason Richards trophy in memory of the former Team BOC driver.

V8 Supercars head to Western Australia for races 9 and 10 from May 3 – 5.

Fabian Coulthard "In the week leading up to this race I knew that if I couldn't win the JR trophy, I wanted Brighty to bring it home. JR was a good family friend.

We used to go-kart many years ago and stay with each other's family. It's a tough pill to swallow. It's hard to talk about it; it's just very emotional for us as a team.

"Off the restart in the first race today I felt like I had a flat tyre. I spoke to Will [Davison] and he felt exactly the same. The car was sliding all over the place.

I was probably a bit cautious and I'm very disappointed not to get a race win here but we'll regroup. If third's a bad result then our expectations have obviously grown recently!"