HRT works to overcome Adelaide setback.

There were no points on offer for the V8 Supercar races at the Australian Grand Prix, yet the usual 'sheep stations' appeared to be up for grabs as the drivers biffed and barged their way around the five-kilometre Albert Park circuit.

At the end of the weekend, there were some fairly hefty damage bills, including those for Rick Kelly's Kmart Commodore, both entries from Adelaide-based Team Dynamik and Mark Skaife's HRT Commodore.

Skaife had nowhere to go when he found the spinning Simon Wills' Commodore sideways in front of him at turn one of lap one on Sunday and, while the #2 HRT car's speed was relatively low at around 70-80kph, the impact registered 7Gs on the vehicle's in-car data logger.

To have the vehicle repaired and turned around in time for the V8 Supercar Championship opener in Adelaide next weekend (20-21 March), the HRT crew had Skaife's car back at the team's Clayton workshop by the end of the F1 GP, stripped back that night and at chassis repairers Dencar first thing Monday morning - swapping places on the repair jig with Kelly's Kmart Commodore after that vehicle's 'shunt' on Friday afternoon.

Dencar has had to virtually replace the right front corner of the Skaife car, including the chassis rail, cross member, inner guards and all the relevant panels and support panels - with an all-up repair bill in the vicinity of $30,000. The chassis arrived back in the workshop after painting this morning [Thursday], with the crew now working to have the car ready to ship to Adelaide next Tuesday in time for the Clipsal 500.

It was certainly not the outcome the team was looking for from the grand prix weekend, after hoping that it could avoid drama and use the three races on offer to gain useful data prior to the Adelaide round.

HRT's car speed seemed fine, with Skaife grabbing provisional pole and second in the shoot-out, and Todd Kelly recording fifth in qualifying and eighth in the shoot-out. Skaife grabbed the lead at the start of Friday's ten-lapper but contact from Greg Murphy on lap three relegated him to the back of the pack and 16th place at the finish.

From there, Skaife was playing catch-up and, while he climbed back to ninth during Saturday's 19-lap heat, a spin while trying to gain more places dropped him back to 14th. Of course, Sunday's problems followed when Wills was forced off in the first corner melee, the Team Dynamik car spinning while trying to regain the circuit and coming back on broadside to Skaife.

Kelly avoided such extremes to record three top ten finishes after the team decided to use the event for development prior to the season proper. Kelly and his crew kept making significant changes to the car each day and, while that probably affected his chances of a podium, Todd felt the crew had learned much that will assist them over the coming rounds.

The weekend was generally a pleasing one from Holden's point of view, with Jason Bright's PWR Commodore taking two race wins and a second, ahead of the Steven
Richards and Greg Murphy Commodores. Defending champ Marcos Ambrose still seems to be the Ford benchmark, but that will become clearer after Adelaide.

After taking a back seat to the F1 pilots and cars last weekend, the V8 Supercars will be the show again in ten days' time in arguably the year's best event. The Clipsal 500 weekend consists of two 78-lap legs - one on Saturday and one Sunday - each of 250 kilometres in length.