Motorsport: Enforcer flexes muscles

Alan Gurr of Team Sirromet Wines takes a short cut during yesterday's practice round of the V8 Supercars at Pukekohe. Picture / Dean Purcell

Ford claimed first blood as Russell Ingall gunned his Falcon to fastest time in practice yesterday for the Pukekohe round of the V8 Supercar championship.

The defending champion was just .0957s quicker than young Holden driver Rick Kelly with the championship leader Jamie Whincup in another Ford third.

After two hours of practice there were four Fords and six Holdens in the top 10. Top New Zealander was the King of Pukekohe, Greg Murphy, in eighth place ahead of Jason Richards and Steven Richards, who completed the top 10.

Team Kiwi's Paul Radisich was 17th as the top 25 were covered by less than a second.

"Today doesn't mean much. It's just muscle-flexing day," said Ingall. "The real work's still to come and it looks like it will be down to the driver."

Ingall chased Murphy home in all the races last year and is keen to score a first round win at Pukekohe for his team owners, Ross and Jimmy Stone, who were brought up nearby.

He has had his fair share of criticism over the years, first for his aggression and later for switching from Holden to Ford.

"It doesn't worry me," he said. "The more people say negative things, the more I go faster."

He said his reputation as "The Enforcer" was being emulated by others this season.

"You don't want to be seen as the soft one in the pack," he said. "If everybody's having a go you've got to go with the flow."

Kelly's effort was notable because he was driving a Holden rebuilt from the firewall forwards after a crash at Melbourne.

Ingall and Kelly were dubious about the reverse-grid race tomorrow, predicting a fair amount of panel damage as the quicker cars try to work their way through to the front.

Ingall described the exercise as a lottery but he conceded that it should be possible to get into the top 10 from a back-row start. Whincup is a fan of the concept and said it should provide a great spectacle.

Less lucky was rookie James Courtney, who did 28 laps in the two hours of practice before sliding off into the barriers.

The V8 Supercars have qualifying sessions from 11am today and a top-10 shootout at noon. The first 36-lap race starts at 3.10pm.

Tomorrow the reverse-grid second Supercar race over 50 laps will start at 12.05pm and the third of similar length begins at 4.30pm.

The New Zealand V8s had two practice sessions yesterday with Ford's Angus Fogg quickest ahead of Kayne Scott's Holden and John McIntyre's Ford. The New Zealand cars race over 10 laps today and will have two 18-lap races tomorrow.

Daniel Gaunt, rejoining the Toyota single-seater series, after racing in the US, was quickest in qualifying. Second was Christchurch driver Andy Knight with English visitor Ben Clucas quickly on the pace in third place.

Gaunt has already won the championship.

One of the main contenders for second place, Ben Harford, qualified fourth but ended the session in the tyre barriers.

Auckland teenager Shane Van Gisbergen headed the Formula Ford qualifiers. He needs only a top-five finish in one of the two races to clinch the championship. Craig Baird won the Porsche GT-3 pole by 0.001s from Matt Halliday with Aussie Alex Davison third.