Ambrose's win nearly unplugged
Stone Brothers Racing claimed a hat trick of wins its home track with Marcos Ambrose's victory in the Queensland 300 at Queensland Raceway on 4 July the sixth round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series. The victory not only had to be earned on the track but off as well. Initially Ambrose was disqualified after post race scrutineering but won the appeal.
Ambrose dominated the race his Pirtek Falcon and survived a couple of race re-starts to win his second round of the season and increase his series lead.
Ambrose now leads the championship on 1064 points from Steve Richards (1006) and Jason Bright (951) - ironically all three of these drivers had their first V8 Supercar victory in an SBR car. David Besnard started SBR's winning streak at QR when he won the Queensland 500 in 2002 and Ingall continued the trend in the number nine Caltex Havoline Falcon last year.
Ambrose's SBR teammate Russell Ingall was running second to Ambrose with 29 laps remaining, but got caught out on some oil and ran wide at turn three before recovering to finish fourth.
There were three safety car periods during the race and when the last one came Ambrose had a 4.5-second lead. He survived the re-start two laps later and managed to hold out Richards and Garth Tander to the chequered flag.
"This is the third win in a row here for SBR and I am just glad I could finally notch one for the team. I really had to dig deep on that last re-start. I was giving it everything I had before that, but I had to drive the car faster, " said Ambrose.
Ambrose recorded his fourth straight pole position at Queensland Raceway in Saturday's top ten shootout. As usual the front row is completed by another demon qualifier Mark Skaife in his Holden Commodore.
Top 10 Shootout
1: Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 1:10.5335
2: Mark Skaife (Holden) 1:10.5856
3: Todd Kelly (Holden) 1:10.6907
4: Steven Richards (Holden) 1:10.7264
5: Jason Bright (Holden) 1:10.7353
6: Russell Ingall (Ford) 1:10.8140
7: Simon Wills (Holden) 1:11.0678
8: John Bowe (Ford) 1:11.1677
9: Paul Radisich (Ford) 1:11.7223
10: Craig Baird (Holden) 1:12.5381
Championship contender Jason Bright, starting from fifth, was briefly running in second behind Marcos Ambrose but an unlucky decision to bring Bright in for his compulsory fuel stop just one lap before a safety car was called, left him behind Ambrose's teammate Russell Ingall. A lack of car balance compounded his problems as first Steve Richards then Garth Tander got past him.
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