16/12/2004

BOSCH DRIVERS ON AUTOSPORT LIST

Bosch Motorsport’s Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall have both been named on an exclusive list of drivers by the world’s best known motorsport magazine, Autosport.

Ambrose, who recently won back-to-back V8 Supercar championships in his Stone Brothers Racing-prepared Pirtek Falcon, has been rated as the fourth best touring car driver in the world and the 37th best driver in any formula.

Ingall, who helped SBR to an historic 1-2 finish in this year’s V8 Supercar championship in his Caltex Ford, has been named as the 17th best touring car driver on the planet, by the British-based magazine.

Ambrose took his place on the touring car list behind Germany Touring Championship (DTM) drivers Mattias Ekstrom (Sweden) and Gary Paffett (Great Britain) and European Touring Car Championship driver Andy Priaulx (Great Britain).

Autosport described Ambrose as “the (Mark) Webber Europe overlooked”.

Ambrose, who is currently on a two-month sabbatical, has added this week’s praise to a list of recent awards including his second consecutive Barry Sheene Medal as V8 Supercar’s “best and fairest” driver and his second Confederation of Australian Motor Sports’ (CAMS) Personality of the Year trophy.

“I guess it’s nice to be recognised in such a way, but it looks like I have a bit more work to do to get to number one,” said Ambrose.

“It would be great if all those guys in the top 20 had a chance to race against each other in equal equipment, it would be interesting to see the final outcome.

“It will be great to see more and more Australians get into that list as the V8 Supercars gain more and more international recognition.”

The top 20 touring car drivers are:

1 Mattias Ekstrom (S) DTM
2 Gary Paffett (GB) DTM
3 Andy Priaulx (GB) ETCC
4 Marcos Ambrose
5 Gabriele Tarquini (I) ETCC
6 Christijan Albers (NL) DTM
7 Greg Murphy
8 James Thompson (GB) BTCC
9 Jason Plato (GB) BTCC
10 Dirk Muller (D) ETCC
11 Rickard Rydell (S) ETCC
12 Jorg Muller (D) ETCC
13 Rick Kelly
14 Yvan Muller (F) BTCC
15 Richard Goransson (S) Swedish TCC
16 Tom Kristensen (DK) DTM
17 Russell Ingall
18 Anthony Reid (GB) BTCC
19 Bernd Schneider (D) DTM
20 Jason Bright