Lockwood Racing search for pace at Pukekohe

Lockwood Racing's Fabian Coulthard was left scratching his head after a frustrating day two of the ITM 500 at Pukekohe in New Zealand.

With two 100km races and more points up for grabs both for the championship and the Jason Richards Trophy, Coulthard was keen to improve on his 7th place finish in the first race yesterday.

The team struggled to find an effective setup in qualifying however and Coulthard started the two races in 13th and 12th position.

Both races were relatively uneventful, with the Lockwood Racing VF Commodore benefiting from incidents ahead of him to finish the first race in 10th and the second in 11th.

Fabian Coulthard:

Race one
"I haven't passed a car all weekend unfortunately. I think we're making it better but we're just not finding big chunks and that's what we need to do."

Race two
"It's a real handful at the moment. We're struggling for one lap speed and consistency. We're really trying to fix it but we're scratching our heads a little bit. We've got pace for about 10th and that's where I feel we're at at the moment. We're going to need all the time we can get to prepare for tomorrow."

Mark Winterbottom won the first race today from James Courtney and Chaz Mostert with local hero Shane Van Gisbergen winning the second from Winterbottom and Scott McLaughlin.

In the chase for the Jason Richards Trophy, Shane Van Gisbergen leads the points on 133 with one 200km race remaining - Winterbottom is second on 118 with Coulthard in 12th on 82 points.

In the championship, Coulthard remains in a strong third position on 740 points, 51 behind series leader Mark Winterbottom and 49 behind Craig Lowndes.

Tomorrow’s 200km race has 150 points on offer for the winner.

The Jason Richards Trophy was brought into the series last year to honour former Team BOC driver and proud Kiwi Jason Richards who passed away from cancer in 2011.

Lockwood Racing