Motorsport: Murph reminds fans of his class

Greg Murphy. Photo / Paul Estcourt

While everyone is celebrating the breakthrough win - and rightly so - for young V8 Supercars driver Shane Van Gisbergen, fellow Kiwi and V8 stalwart Greg Murphy is starting to show flashes of his old self.

He's now part of the Kelly Racing stable alongside Rick and Todd Kelly and David Reynolds. Rick Kelly achieved the fledgling team's first win on Saturday and now sits second in the championship.

Murphy experienced poor luck despite strong car speed at the ITM400 in Hamilton last weekend.

He qualified in the top 10 for both races with his eighth place performance in Saturday's Top 10 shootout backed up by fifth place in Sunday morning's qualifying session.

A solid ninth place finish on Saturday gave Murphy his second top 10 finish for 2011, but a gearbox failure while running in sixth place put the Kiwi ace out of Sunday's race on lap nine.

After his home event, Murphy sits in 18th place on the championship table.

"Our race today finished before it even got started," said Murphy. "It's obviously very disappointing to have a mechanical failure.

"The team is definitely going in a 100 per cent positive direction. Rick had an awesome weekend and unfortunately Todd got caught up in someone else's balls-up, which has badly damaged his car.

"We've had some bad luck, but we have got so many positives to take from this weekend. But today for us we have finished with nothing, which is pretty disappointing."

Rick Kelly said: "Everyone is still pretty stoked to get our first win here this weekend.

"It's a bummer it was on Saturday rather than Sunday because now we have finished sixth and we are all going home with our tails tucked between our legs to a certain extent.

"Shane [Van Gisbergen] did a great job today. He passed me quite aggressively, and fairly, and drove away.

"He had the car to win and he should be pretty stoked to have his first race win here in New Zealand.

"These are great steps forward for us. I think it's actually good that we finished sixth today in some ways, because we go away a little bit upset and we will work really hard now to get a good result at the next event."

POINTS TABLE

1. Jamie Whincup 654

2. Rick Kelly 573

3. Craig Lowndes 552

4. Garth Tander 543

5. Mark Winterbottom 543

6. Shane Van Gisbergen 534

7. Will Davison 528

8. Alex Davison 522

9. Steven Johnson 455

10. Fabian Coulthard 441

20. Greg Murphy 290