GRAND FINAL - ORAN PARK, SYDNEY

Media Information: Friday December 5 2008

Low Grip at Oran Park kept Ford Performance Racing focused on pace in today's V8 Supercar Championship Series practice session, with its potential yet to be seen.

Today's heat meant planned changesw to improve the Orrcon Steel Ford and Castrol FPR Falcon's distance running took longer to assess, allowing no time for a qualifiing run.

That left Steve Richards and championship contender Mark Winterbottom in sixth and ninth respectively but engineers are confident there will be more speed for tomorrow's 12:05pm qualifying session.

Risho's car will run under number 120 this weekend to commemorate the 120th anniversary of FPR sponsor, Dunlop (see following press release).

Mark Winterbottom

Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon

"We certainly didn't see the maximum of what the car could do but the race pace is strong; we know what we've got to do to make it quicker, we just ran out of time.

"[Chamopinship leader, Jaime] Whincup is obviously quick and we've still got to prove our own speed to ourselves tomorrow but we're pretty confident we'll be strong"

Steve Richards

Castrol FPR Falcon

"From the data today we're clearly just adjusting to the track conditions. We couldn't make headway on any of the changes because there was no grip; it's just how this circuit is when it's hot."

"We changed so many things during the session to make the car handle in the race and had no chance to run through the same tests on greens. We need to have a look at the data and see what the bits and pieces were that worked but we're confident we've got a handle on it."

Tim Edwards

Team Principle

"We got a pretty good understanding of the car but didn't manage to put in a quick lap, primarliy because of our concentration on race pace for most of the session. Obviously we've left ourselves a little bit exposed because we don't know our true pace but we're quietly confident."

NRMA Motoring + Services Grand Finale - V8 Supercars Rnd 14                                                                                             

ORAN PARK MOTORSPORT CIRCUIT

PRACTICE

1. Jamie Whincup, 888, 1:09.5125*

2. Russel Ingall, PMM, + 0:00.0795

3. Craig Lowndes, 888, + 0:00.1090

4. Rick Kelly, HSVDT, + 0:00.2493

5. Garth Tander, HRT, + 0:00.4127

6. Steve Richards, Castrol FPR Falcon, + 0:00.4547

7. Lee Holdsworth, GRM, + 0:00.4607

8. James Courtney, SBR, + 0:00.5293

9. Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon, + 0:00.6816

10. Jason Bright, Britek, + 0:00.6996

SERIES DRIVER POINTS REPORT

1. Jamie Whincup (3208)

2. Mark Winterbottom (2975)

3. Garth Tander (2788)

4. Craig Lowndes (2619)

5. Will Davison (2224)

6. Steve Richards (2214)

SERIES TEAM POINTS REPORT

1. 888 (5491)

2. FPR (5002)

3. DJR (4224)

4. HRT (4126)