More points for Coulthard at Perth

It was another valuable haul of points for Lockwood Racing's Fabian Coulthard today in the final race of round five of the V8 Supercar Championship at the Perth 400.

Fresh from a second and fifth place finish in the two 100km races yesterday, Coulthard looked set for a strong result in the 200km feature race at an overcast Barbagallo Raceway.

Qualifying would again prove all important and unfortunately the team couldn't quite find the right setup - Coulthard starting the race from seventh on the grid.

The Lockwood Racing VF Commodore dropped a spot on the opening lap to a fast starting Reynolds, and slotted in to eighth position until the first of two planned pitstops.

Stopping on lap 30, later than those around him, he rejoined 10th. By lap 58 and his second and final stop he was up to third before rejoining seventh for the run to the flag. That became fifth by lap 65 and there Coulthard stayed, bringing the car home just in front of team mate Jason Bright and more valuable points in the bag.

Fabian Coulthard

"Unfortunately the tyre life on the first stint was poor. We really struggled for grip which dictated our strategy a little bit, we went a little bit longer because we thought we were suffering for tyre life but we put the next sets on for the other stints and the thing was like it was on rails. I'm not sure what it was in the early part of the race, we've got to work out why that was but we moved forward in the race and we've got a clean car, not too much work for the boys, so it gives us time to analyse all the data and information and come out strong at the next one."

Brad Jones (team owner)

"Qualifying back a little bit makes it a difficult race but I felt that we maximized every part of the strategy we could but we just couldn't move far enough forward in the first stint. For the Championship, we're ticking off those boxes each race weekend but I definitely think this was one that got away - we're in a strong Championship position now though."

Lockwood Racing