888: 'Rat' takes out top qualifying position for Team Betta Electrical at Sandown
13/9/2003 21:13 (Press Release) -
Team Betta Electrical showed the promise of things to come today at the Betta Electrical Sandown 500.
In the practice session held this morning both Team Betta Electrical car 65 driven by Paul Radisich and Team Betta Electrical car 66 driven by Dean Canto finished in the top ten.
Car 66 came in at seventh position and car 65 came in at 8th position.
For ‘Team Betta Electrical’ fans the best was yet to come.
In the qualifying session held early this afternoon Paul Radisich blitzed the field to come in with the best qualifying time of 1:11.0674. This was a dramatic improvement on his previous time.
Canto in car 66 finished qualifying in 18th place.
Radisich set the scene for an exciting shootout after this exceptionally good effort in the qualifying session. Qualifying had seen the lead change several times.
In the first group Simon Wills in Team Dynamik car 44 had finished fastest with a time of 1:11.414.
Wills was the only driver from that group left in the top ten after the next group had finished their qualifying session.
Skaife, Murphy and Ambrose had all been in the lead at various times during the session.
They were all overtaken when the ‘Rat’ came through his flying lap in the winning time of 1:11.0674 at lap three.
The ‘Rat’ had been in to have his tyres rotated with eight minutes of the session left.
At that time he was sitting in 8th place.
This of course proved to be a well thought out move, resulting in the fastest qualifying time of the day.
The weather turned threatening by the time the top ten shoot out took place late this afternoon.
The wind had been chilly all day but suddenly the treat of rain put a whole new perspective on the possibilities for the Shootout.
The wind had played havoc with the drivers particularly around turn one.
The cold weather also made it difficult for the drivers to get enough heat into the tyres with only one warm-up lap allowed before their flying lap to get a time for the Shootout.
Steven Ellery in car 31 looked promising until he lost it and spun out in the third sector. This out cost him about eight seconds behind what had been a very promising pace.
In what will be Radicish’s 61st start in this championship he got off to a good start, pushing the car through the sectors.
His split times were 27.77 for the first sector and 45.21 for the second.
These were unfortunately not good enough to beat Ambrose, Skaife and Murphy. The times were however good enough to beat the rest of the field.
Radisich will start from a credible fourth position on the grid, while Ambrose will start on pole position in the tomorrow’s race.
After the race Radisich said “both Rydell and I are looking forward to the 500klm race tomorrow
“The car is suited to the track and is now more consistent in its set-up.
With Ludo taking on the role of chief technician, the pressure is off the drivers and other team members as he is the expert in this field and happy to take on this responsibility,” said Radisich.
--Triple Eight Race Engineering press release
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