L & H / Auslec Ford Rising Stars Racing Team starts championship with a win
Release Date: 034/03/2007

Ford Rising Stars Racing Team celebrated their entry into the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Championship with two wins at the Clipsal 500 weekend.

Sydney driver, Michael Caruso, had a faultless weekend winning both races by a comfortable margin and now leads the championship by 12 points.

“We were really happy to start the Championship in such an emphatic fashion and all the hard work over the summer months has paid off with a great result”, Team Manager Jim Morton said. “Our commercial partners Lawrence & Hanson, Auslec and Summit were ecstatic at the result”.

The team’s second car driven normally by Grant Denyer but being raced in his absence by twenty year old rookie Daniel Elliott finished fourteenth after starting twenty seventh in race two. “Daniel was having his first V8 Supercar race and did us proud with a seventh in P2 and unfortunately had a problem in race one”, Jim Morton said. “We asked him to bring the car home in one piece and use the event to learn how to drive these cars. He did everything we asked and more”.

Ford Rising Stars racing is a new initiative aimed at bridging the gap from junior motor sport formula’s to V8’s and training the next generation of Ford’s V8 driving talent. Daniel Elliott won the 2005 Formula Ford Championship and is the team’s rookie for 2007.

After completing a clean sweep of the races on the weekend and just missing the lap record Michael Caruso said, “All the long hours in the workshop by the team during the off season has put in a position to win races and I am very happy to pay them back with back to back wins on the weekend. I had no problems at all with the car and was gradually able to pull out a comfortable lead”, he said.

“I would especially like to thank my father who mechanics on the car and Jim Morton who have been a part of my racing for many years”, Caruso said.

Ford Rising Stars Racing’s flagship partners for 2007 are Australia’s leading electrical, industrial and safety suppliers, Lawrence & Hanson and Auslec.