Fujitsu Racing GRM's Michael Caruso has fought hard for two well-earned top 10 race finishes at the Tradingpost Perth Challenge in Western Australia last weekend (May 4-6) despite lacking in qualifying pace.

Competing in three races across Saturday and Sunday at the upgraded Barbagallo Raceway, Caruso managed to score 8th, 12th and 9th respectively over three 50-lap sprint races which required both hard and soft compound tyres to be used over the weekend.

After starting the weekend with a combined practice result of 22nd overall, Caruso frustratingly experienced front grip issues which only placed him 21st in qualifying for Saturday's Race 7 before the 28-year-old ploughed on to recover inside the top 10 with an 8th-place finish. Sunday's first qualifying session faired better with 16th, followed by a 12th-place finish, before finishing the weekend in 9th in the final 120km race.

A string of such strong finishing results saw Caruso move up in the V8 Supercar Championship to 11th place overall, sitting on 516 points.

Caruso will appear on SPEED News Australia on Wednesday May 16 at 7pm on SPEED (Channel 512 on FOXTEL and Austar) and a replay at 10pm. Further replays can be seen on Thursday May 17 at 3am, 7.30am, 12.30pm and 6pm.

The next event on the 2012 racing calendar will be the Phillip Island 300 at the picturesque Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, Victoria, from May 18-20. Caruso's previous best finish in a V8 Supercar race there is fifth when competing the 2008 500km endurance race with former GRM teammate Lee Holdsworth.

MICHAEL ON THE UPGRADED BARBAGALLO RACEWAY:

"It was great to be in the brand new pit facilities at Barbagallo. Building a brand new pit building is heaps better than the old carport we used to work in, and having two different pitlane entries built throws up a few options for future events too. Barbagallo Raceway has definitely made the circuit more workable for teams so the investment has been a huge step forward.

MICHAEL ON SATURDAY:

"The car struggled with front grip which made it very difficult to get a good time particularly with the track being renowned for extremely close qualifying given it is such a short track," said Caruso. "Disappointed to finish 21st, the car has been extremely poor since Tasmania in qualifying which Garry [Rogers] and the team understand we need to improve if we want the opportunity to be a strong contender in the series this year.

"Race 7 started off really well making up a few spots in the first lap, the safety car came out on the next lap due to the crash at the last corner. We had started on hard compound tyres so we pitted immediately to put on the softs, which brought us out at the back of the field. The car was handling well and manage to pass a lot of cars, and ended up finishing eighth from starting 21st which was a great comeback."

MICHAEL ON SUNDAY QUALIFYING:

"Qualifying for Race 8, the first of the day, was on hard tyres and we managed 16th but unfortunately we were still having the same problems with front grip which was always going to make it hard to qualify in the top 10," explained Caruso. "With a short time to prepare for the last qualifying session which would be in soft tyres, we knew it was going to be hard to qualify well as were unable to overcome the under steer problems which we had faced throughout the whole weekend. We finished 21st."

MICHAEL ON SUNDAY RACES:

"For Race 8 we started on hard tyres and our strategy was to go as long as we could on them to give us our best shot of finishing well once we change over to softs. We were happy to make up some spots in the race as we had been throughout this year and 12th was a pretty good result.

"Race 9 started on hard tyres again and it seemed to be the trend for the majority of the field too. We seemed to be tracking along ok until the safety car came out on lap 14. We pitted for our soft tyres which meant we would need to do 36 laps on them which was 10 more than we had been completing in the previous races. This was going to be hard work as the drop off on the soft tyre would make us vulnerable to drivers on hards.

"Once the race resumed we were in 9th and managed to get up to 7th, but knowing Lowndes and others were making a charge through the field it was hard to stay there. We ended up holding off Steven Johnson who was putting the pressure on for the remainder of the race and finished 9th.

"Overall Barbagallo was a weekend of strong race results and poor qualifying which we hope to get a handle of as soon as possible as it can only help our opportunity of contending for races."

To keep up to date on all the news during 2012, join Michael's Facebook Fan Page or following him on Twitter @michaelcaruso34.

Fore more information head to www.michaelcaruso.com.au