Chris Pither’s lack of seat time both in a V8 Supercar and at the circuit known as ‘The Paperclip’ showed in today’s two 35-minute practice sessions for Round 4 of the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Championship.

Pither’s only V8 Supercar drive for season ’07 was at Winton nine weeks ago and this is his first outing at Queensland Raceway since October last year.

Practice 1:

Chris spent the session reacquainting himself with the cockpit of his Kanga Loaders Commodore and getting the feel of the massive acceleration and braking power of these awesome beasts.

‘I think the car is handling okay, but I’m 1.5 seconds off the pace.

‘It has good power down out of the tight turns here, but on the other hand I’ve been a bit slow into the turns, but we’ll work on that.

‘For the next session we’ll have better tyres and I’ll have a bit of a go because I really want to make it into the top 50 per cent of the field for qualifying. It’s really difficult to qualify well if you’re stuck in the slower half of the field.

‘We’ve also trimmed a bit of rear wing out of the car [for less drag and therefore faster speed on the long straights of this circuit].

‘I’m still building up my confidence in braking a bit later, and I know there’s a lot of time to be picked up there.

‘But it’s a good bit of fun being back in a Supercar again.’

Results: 1 Thompson, 2 Webb, 3 Scott, 4 D’Alberto, 5 Caruso, 6 Howard, 7 Marshall, 8 O’Brien, 9 Youlden, 10 Denyer, 20 Pither

Practice 2:

With the aid of a set of ‘green’ [brand new] slick tyres, Pither lowered the gap to the front of the field by more than half a second, to 0.8 seconds. With the track warming up and grip levels increasing Pither slashed a full second off his lap time.

‘The car feels okay. On a couple of corners it is “pushing” at the front and then skips into oversteer [sliding at the rear].

‘We’ll go and get some data from another car and overlay mine on that to see where I can make up some time. I’m only eight-tenths off the pace, but in this field that is 14 spots in this 37-car field.’

Results: 1 D. White, 2 Caruso, 3 Thompson, 4 Webb, 5 D’Alberto, 6 Zukanovic, 7 Scott, 8 Denyer, 9 Youlden, 10 Fernandez, 14 Pither

Chris Pither and the Kanga Loaders Commodore line up for a 20-minute qualifying session and Race 1 (16 laps) on Saturday, 21 July; and Race 2 (16 laps; top 10 Race 1 finishers in reverse order) and Race 3 (26 laps) on Sunday.

In Oz, catch the Queensland Raceway Fujitsu V8 Supercar Races on Channel 7 at 1.30 pm on Saturday, 28 July. Check your local guides for details.

In New Zealand, the Queensland Raceway Fujitsu V8 Supercar action will be broadcast on the TVONE Fujitsu V8 Supercar show on Sunday, 12 August. Check your local guides for details.