Greg Murphy in the old Paul Morris Motorsports (PMM) car at Bahrain. Murph debuts a new Triple Eight designed, PMM built car at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide this weekend.
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By Briar Gunther 10:48 AM Tue 9 March, 2010
Source: BigPond Sport
Greg Murphy feels confident heading into the Clipsal 500 Adelaide after shaking down his new #51 Commodore at Queensland Raceway yesterday (Monday).
Murph missed the opening event of the 2010 Championship at Abu Dhabi due to commitments with the Top Gear Live show before driving teammate Russell Ingall’s old car from last year at Bahrain.
And at this weekend’s Clipsal 500 Adelaide, the first V8 event for the year on Australian soil, Murphy will debut a brand new Triple Eight Racing designed, Paul Morris Motorsports (PMM) built Commodore.
In the old car at Bahrain the Castrol Edge driver qualified fifth securing himself a berth in the Top 10 Shootout and exhibiting what fans can expect for the rest of the year.
Mechanical problems affected his race results, but it should be a different story at Adelaide in the new Commodore.
“After only a handful of laps I’m feeling very confident; the new Castrol Edge Commodore feels ‘complete’ and performs all parts of the process very well,” Murph said after the shake down.
“The Triple Eight-designed cars provide a very strong base to start from and I am very much looking forward to rolling the car out of the truck in Adelaide this week.”
A loose brake caliper ruined the first race Murphy took part in for 2010 while problems with the engine manifold in the second race at Bahrain killed any chance of a good result.
“I reckon the car was good enough to be in the top 10 for both of the races and it was quite disappointing given the work that had been going on,” he said.
But that is all in the past after the crew worked around the clock to finish his new car ready for the shake down.
“It has been a marathon effort by the Castrol Edge/PMM team, an amazing effort since they returned from the Middle East just last week,” Murphy said.
“They were still putting the finishing touches to the car in the early hours of the morning before packing it in the truck for the test.
“They’d had only a few hours sleep, but the car ran smoothly and without fault, so I’m very impressed.”
Murph understands it will be hard to finish the 2010 Championship in the top 10 given he missed the first event.
“We really can’t afford any more poor performances throughout the year to make sure we get ourselves in the top 10,” he said.
“As far as the Championship goes, Jamie has got off to a blinder of a start no matter who you are.
“It’s tough to catch up on someone who has got such a jump on the rest of the field so all we can do now is our best.”
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