August 20, 2011
Career-Best Finish for Bates Among Carnage-Ridden Fujitsu Race
Tony Bates has finished as the best of the Greg Murphy Racing Fujitsu V8 Supercar drivers in Race 1, Round 4 of the
series at Queensland Raceway today.
Despite qualifying back in 19th position, Bates capitalised on some carnage in the race to improve to a career-best
seventh place in his SportsAlive.com / Alternative Freight Services VE Commodore. Bates also set the fourth-fastest lap
of the race.
“I was actually in sixth for most of the race,” a delighted Bates said. “There was some oil at Turn 2 and Rodney Jane
was able to overtake me on the last lap, but I’m stoked with seventh.
“Qualifying was close and even though I was back in 19th, I was only a few tenths of a second away from being in the
top-10.”
Bates will start tomorrow’s top-10 reverse-grid Race 2 from fourth position.
Next best of the GMR entries was James Brock in the Tricor / Drillpro / Olympus entry, moving from 24th on the grid up
to 12th at the finish with a consistent and intelligent performance.
Unfortunately, the other two entries of Geoff Emery (AC Delco / Simworx / National Directory Distribution) and Daniel
Jilesen (R & J Batteries / Earthex / King Gee) failed to finish after being involved in separate incidents on the opening lap.
Emery spun at Turn 1 after contact with another competitor, and was collected by several other cars. His VE Commodore
sustained heavy damage, creating a heavy workload for the team to repair the car for tomorrow’s two races.
Jilesen’s race ended a couple of corners further up the road when he sustained differential damage from a rear-end
impact.
“I made a good start and moved from sixth up to fifth,” Jilesen explained. “At Turn 3, Jack Perkins went for a dive down
the inside and he missed me, but he hit Nick Percat and both Perkins and Percat spun right in front of me, and then Paul
Morris hit me from behind.
“The impact bent the differential, which put me out of the race. It was a shame to have my first DNF for the year, but
tomorrow there should be some good racing with a lot of fast cars coming through from the back of the field.
Races 2 and 3 will be held tomorrow, with Race 3 to be shown live on 7Mate.