It was a tough race for the Bottle-O Racing Team at Winton this afternoon with car trouble spelling an end to the team’s attempt at a finish in the top 10.   Driver Paul Dumbrell persevered to finish the race in 28th position.

The day began with qualifying where Dumbrell put down a solid performance. He notched up 10 laps in the session with his fastest on lap 9 in a time of 1.22.4454.  Dumbrell’s fastest lap put him just outside of the shootout for a race start from 11th position on the grid.

Dumbrell didn’t waste any time on the race start, hopping up to 10th on the opening lap.  The #55 Bottle-O Falcon made an early show of strength, clocking its fastest lap of the race on lap 2 in a time of 1:24.5874.

As the opening laps unfolded Dumbrell dropped back slightly in the order, but was able to hold steady in 12th until his pit stop on lap 13.

The crew changed rear tyres and made an adjustment to the lower rear roll centre during the stop.  When Dumbrell threaded back into the field the car started to suffer from performance issues. 

Dumbrell wrestled with an understeer problem that affected the car’s balance, making it difficult to bring the car back up to speed.  The car hovered around 20th position and with fading tyre grip Dumbrell was forced to give up ground and slip further back in the order. 

On lap 35 the struggle for grip began to really bite and the car ran off track.  Dumbrell tailed the back of the field, but soldiered on to bring the car across the finish in 28th. 

The team have now focused their attention firmly on tomorrow’s line-up of events with the opportunity to turn their fortunes around in the 200km race.

Copyright © Rod Nash Racing 2010

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