Marcos Ambrose on fire !!!

[marcus]

well what a lap by Ambrose ..superb effort and from what i have heard only the 2nd rookie ever to start bathurst from pole..great effort

the top 15 looks like this

1 4 Pirtek Racing M.Ambrose/W.Wakefield Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:09.7785*
2 5 Ford Tickford Racing G.Seton/S.Richards Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:09.9804 0:00.2019
3 11 Perkins Motorsport L.Perkins/R.Ingall Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:09.9912 0:00.2127
4 2 Holden Racing Team J.Bright/T.Mezera Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:10.1178 0:00.3393
5 1 Holden Racing Team M.Skaife/T.Longhurst Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:10.1599 0:00.3814
6 17 Shell Helix Racing S.Johnson/P.Radisich Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:10.3538 0:00.5753
7 600 CAT Racing J.Bowe/S.Wills Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:10.4338 0:00.6553
8 31 Super Cheap Auto Racing S.Ellery/G.Brabham Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:10.4735 0:00.6950
9 34 Valvoline Cummins Repco Team G.Tander/J.Bargwanna Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:10.4999 0:00.7214
10 6 Ford Tickford Racing J.Richards/D.Canto Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:10.5180 0:00.7395
11 15 K-Mart Racing Team T.Kelly/G.Murphy Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:10.8654 0:01.0869
12 00 Gibson Motorsport C.Lowndes/N.Crompton Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:11.0141 0:01.2356
13 18 Shell Helix Racing C.McLean/G.Ritter Ford Falcon AU 5000 1 1 2:11.2323 0:01.4538
14 29 Big Kev Racer P.Morris/A.Stichbury Holden Commodore VX 5000 1 1 2:11.3743 0:01.5958
15 43 K&J Thermal Products P.Weel/T.Leahey Ford Falcon AU

[jetsetter]

A great effort by Ambrose to jump 10 spots & an equally poor lap from Lowndes to drop that many.

[Crash Test]

Indeed....a corker lap, and the right car will be on the pole position

[Brock]

Ambrose did really well but what about old Jimmy Richards. I thought his effort to be as good as Ambrose. GO JIM..............

[Crash Test]

Absolutely....it's been many a year seen Jimbo drove in a shoot-out....early 90s, if that.

[Michael H]

Well done, Marcos. A superb lap. And yes, Jim was driving at the max, and so smooth.
Marcos reminds me of Rickard Rydell, in that now we see that the old saying that new drivers can't hack Bathurst is not true. All you have to do is, firstly, be a good driver, but the more important factor, is to know your car extremely well. Ambrose has done this. All he had to do was learn the track, which he has done quickly, and the rest is history. Whereas it took Rydell a year before he got pole after his first trip, Marcos has done it on debut. A fine effort.

Apparently he is the first rookie to get pole since Klaus Ludwig. That put's him up there in fine company . Alain Menu almost got pole in 1997 on his debut. But who can forget Ludwig's lap. It was awesome. As far as I know, Ludwig never returned to bathurst after 1987, although I read somewhere that he was very keen to come back in 1988.