V8 Supercar veteran Russell Ingall believes former teammate Marcos Ambrose deserves more respect for his achievements in America’s NASCAR series.

Ingall was Ambrose’s teammate at Stone Brothers Racing as the Tasmanian secured the 2003 and 2004 V8 Supercar crowns before heading to the United States to pursue his NASCAR dream.

The 35-year-old was the talk of pitlane at the Darwin V8s on Sunday after securing his first NASCAR Sprint Cup pole position overnight at Michigan International Speedway.

Ambrose posted an average lap speed of 203.241m/h (327km/h) at the two mile (3.22km) long superspeedway, joining an elite club of NASCAR drivers to secure pole above the magical 200m/h mark.

And Ingall, who won the 2005 V8 title with Ambrose as his teammate, believes Ambrose’s efforts in the highly competitive American motorsport scene shouldn’t be overlooked.

“I reckon it’s fantastic. The rest of the drivers in V8s give me a ribbing for being a Marcos fan but we’ve got a long relationship,” the Supercheap Auto Racing driver told AAP.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy. I reckon he doesn’t get enough credit for the jump that he did.

“To actually give up a career that he could have had over here for as long as he wanted and to take a punt … head off to a complete unknown, to a series which is very homegrown and very protective of their drivers … win a few street races and now be on pole for one of the biggest races of the year, it’s just very underrated what his achievements have been.”

Stone Brothers Racing team principal Ross Stone said his former employee had more than shown he deserved to be a part of NASCAR’s elite Sprint Cup series.

“He deserves his place in that business and he’s hanging there,” Stone told AAP.

“The great big thing that’s missing there, and he doesn’t need reminding of it, is a good result on an oval.

“It’ll come to him. He’s good enough and smart enough that they’ll put it all together.”

AAP