Kelly Racing Leaves Adelaide With Mixed Emotions

Kelly Racing Leaves Adelaide With Mixed Emotions

Greg Murphy

Photo by: John Maricic

Kelly Racing leaves the Clipsal 500 with mixed emotions after the four car team experienced differing fortunes in the opening event of the 2012 V8 Supercars Championship in Adelaide today.

While a solid weekend sees the Jack Daniel’s Racing garage in fourth place in the teams championship standings, the Pepsi Max Crew are facing a massive workload after a major crash in qualifying ended Greg Murphy’s day.

Jack Daniel’s Racing drivers Rick and Todd Kelly leave the streets of Adelaide in ninth and 13th respectively in the championship points standings after the first event of the season.

Rick Kelly finished 11th in today’s race, with fuel economy issues forcing him to make a ‘splash and dash’ pit stop on the penultimate lap.

After qualifying in fifth place, Kelly was comfortably in sixth place for most of today’s race before fuel conservation saw him drop to seventh behind Shane Van Gisbergen.

Todd Kelly also showed top 10 pace in the first part of the race, but a wheel nut problem at his first pit stop dropped him off the lead lap and out of contention.

Murphy was relegated to spectating for today’s 78-lap race after a massive accident in qualifying severely damaged the #51 Pepsi Max Commodore.

Murphy escaped injury in the wreck, where he came across the slow moving car of Jonothan Webb at the entry to the final corner. The team will assess the condition of the chassis when the car returns to Kelly Racing’s headquarters in Melbourne tomorrow.

Karl Reindler learned much in his first race event with Kelly Racing, finishing 20th in today’s race aboard the #11 Fair Dinkum Sheds Commodore.

Will Davison won today’s Clipsal 500 ahead of Mark Winterbottom and Garth Tander.

Kelly Racing will be back in action in two weeks time for the Formula 1 QANTAS Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria on March 15-18.

KELLY RACING QUOTEBOARD

RICK KELLY - #15 Jack Daniel’s Holden Commodore:

“I was disappointed that we didn't have the pace to run with the top five,” said Rick Kelly.

“When (Shane) Van Gisbergen passed us for sixth and pulled away, at that point we were saving fuel, but we didn't quite have the pace of the top five.

“We've got a fuel economy issue that we need to get sorted. That splash and dash pit stop and the end cost us a few spots.

“I thought we may have been able to run with the front runners a little bit more today.

“For us it's been a massive learning weekend as far as working with my new engineer Alex and how the car performs and how we can make it quicker.

“For a weekend with a lot of new crew members, particularly in the engineering side of things, I think it was a very good weekend.

“We gathered up good points and we got two straight Jack Daniel's Commodores, which is great. The team has got a lot of work to do on Murph's car.

“We were not exactly where we wanted to be today but it's a solid start to the year.”

TODD KELLY - #7 Jack Daniel’s Holden Commodore:

“The whole race was a struggle,” said Todd Kelly.

“I thought I had quite a good Jack Daniel's Commodore. We started off the race with a used set of tyres from yesterday's race so we expected to have a bit of a tough first stint but then come on after the first stop.

“Then we pitted for really fresh tyres. I had two sets to do the middle and last stint, so we were looking good to come home strong.

“The car was good and I was keen to press on but I lost a hell of a lot of time in the pit stop with a wheel nut problem and the guys had to leave the old tyre on the left rear on the car. It had already done two stints so on its third stint it was struggling.

“Losing time in the pit stop put us a lap down and we struggled with that old tyre in the middle stint. In the last stint of the race I had plenty of pace but I was stuck behind cars that were a lap ahead of me, so I couldn't do much in terms of racing them.

“It was a pretty disappointing day because our car was certainly good enough to be right up there.”

KARL REINDLER - #11 Fair Dinkum Sheds Holden Commodore:

“I got off to a great start and by end of the first lap, I had made up seven or eight positions,” said Karl Reindler.

“The start was a blinder. The Fair Dinkum Sheds Commodore was pretty consistent for the first stint, but the rear tyres went way off. Trying to manage the rear tyres was kind of the story of our race.

“I was driving the car as carefully as possible to avoid lighting the rears up. The balance of the car was a bit ‘oversteery’, but we dealt with that most of the day.

“It was tough out there going the whole race without a Safety Car, but at the end of the day, it’s all about putting more runs on the board, which we were able to this weekend and it was a great way to start the relationship with Kelly Racing.”

GREG MURPHY - #51 Pepsi Max Holden Commodore:

QUESTION: Murph, unfortunately talking in bad circumstances with massive damage to the Pepsi MAX Crew Commodore sustained as you were the first car on a quick lap.

“It happens just about every meeting in qualifying, the front cars are coming around to finish a lap when the last cars are getting up to speed,” said Greg Murphy.

“I hoped that everyone would be on their second run by that point and pushing a bit more out of the gate. I got to Turn 12 and saw one car, (Michael) Patrizi, who got out of the way and then got to the next part of the corner where poor Jono (Jonathan Webb) was with two other cars in front of him. You can read it for what it was.”

QUESTION: The queuing in qualifying is not a new problem, particularly at some of the smaller circuits. Is there a way we can change it?

“I think the session needs to be longer. We’d already had a red flag and there was 11 minutes to go and everyone’s trying to get a gap and a clean run and there’s just not a lot of time.

“There’s a real panic among everyone out there. We all head out the gate and some guys just charge past everybody, but then hold everyone up when they get in front and it’s all just a mess.

“There are a lot of guys that just dawdle about on the track. They are never going to set a quick lap on their first lap as they are going way too slow to get any heat in their tyres.”

QUESTION: Are you OK physically?

“I have a bit of a sore neck, but it’s more the car and our guys that have suffered.”