Brabham storms to Silverstone pole.
14/05/2005
David Brabham gave Aston Martin reason to cheer by storming to pole position at Silverstone as the DBR9 prepares to make its UK race debut in the third round of the FIA GT championship.
During the first of two qualifying sessions, the Aussie set the quickest time of the day with a 1min 15.792secs lap to beat team-mate Peter Kox to pole by almost six tenths of a second as the Prodrive run team secured a front row lockout for its home race.
"It was pretty good wasn't it," he told Crash.net when asked about his fastest lap. "The car was very good this morning and it had a lot more grip than yesterday. We did a few minor changes with the car but I think a lot of it was down to the track. I got a clear run and we had a couple sets of new tyres and were pushing really well to put in some good laps. It's really good to have Peter alongside me and have a one-two for the Aston Martin team."
Brabham admitted that he was slightly surprised by his pace with the new car, which has only taken part in one race so far, but was confident for the Silverstone event.
"So early in the programme we are never really sure what to expect when we turn up at the race track," he said. "At Sebring we weren't really sure, yet we came away with the win even though I don't think we were the quickest car, we were probably a few tenths behind the Corvette. I think here with this race, we won't see the kind of gaps from qualifying in the actual race. We are actually probably a little bit behind in terms of race pace compared to what we would like at the moment but it'll be a very close race."
Victory for Brabham in the race would also give him the chance to achieve something his father Sir Jack Brabham never managed, victory in the RAC Tourist Trophy.
"I don't get many chances [to win something he didn't] so I suppose I have one tomorrow!" he said. "I got the impression that everyone went out and put their new tyres on in the first session and looked like they were focusing on the race and if you look at the times people set in race conditions its actually very close. I'll be driving as fast as I can and if it's going to go our way it'll go our way."
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