Mark Winterbottom breaks long winless drought
Mark Winterbottom took his first victory in over a year at the second race of the SKYCITY Triple Crown at Hidden Valley earlier today. The Ford Performance Racing pilot put in a dominant display throughout the 100 kilometre race, crossing the line with a six second buffer at the completion of the 35 laps.
Winterbottom led home James Courtney, who managed to hold off a surging Craig Lowndes for Red Bull Racing. The pair came together on the final lap in an incident reminiscent of the altercation between Reynolds and Winterbottom in yesterday’s race. Lowndes proceeded to back off from Courtney and consequently settled for a podium finish. Will Davison crossed the line fourth in the second Ford Performance Racing entry, narrowly ahead of championship leader Jamie Whincup.
Pole-sitter James Courtney led the field into turn 1, and set about gapping the FPR entries of Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison. However, Courtney did not appear to have the pace on the harder compound tyre, and he was soon gobbled up by the FPR duo of Winterbottom and Davison before the pit-stop phase.
In the closing laps, it appeared as though Ford Performance Racing would achieve a one-two finish, the perfect response after capitulating in the latter stages of yesterday’s 120 kilometre sprint. However, James Courtney and Craig Lowndes reeled in FPR’s Will Davison with two laps remaining. The fight was then on between Lowndes and Courtney to determine who would take second position behind Winterbottom. The two came together on the final lap as Lowndes looked to the inside of James Courtney at turn 6; however the incident caused no change in position.
In what turned out to be an extremely clean race, Jonathon Webb is the only driver under investigation as a result of contact with Scott Pye in the latter stages of the race at turn 5. With Pye falling back on a worn set of hard tyres, Webb dived to the inside; only to make contact with the rear of Pye’s Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport prepared Commodore. Tim Slade also made contact with the GRM entry piloted by Alexandre Premat, however both were lucky enough to remain on the track, and finished 11th and 15th respectively. No further action is expected from the stewards.
Jonathon Webb continued his run of impressive, workmanlike performances to guide his Darryl Lea backed Commodore to 6th overall. Fabian Coulthard finished the race in 7th for Brad Jones Racing after qualifying 4th, while Tekno Autosport’s Shane van Gisbergen crossed the line 8th. Garth Tander ended up 9th in the second Holden Racing Team Commodore, ahead of David Reynolds in his Bottle-O backed FG Falcon.
Some interesting strategies played out during the 100 kilometre sprint. Dean Fiore opted to begin the race on the softer compound tyre whilst almost all of his rivals started on the harder compound tyre. Fiore impressively picked his way through the field and briefly led the race, however the Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport pilot eventually ended up 19th having qualified in17th position.
Scott McLaughlin also tried a different strategy from 14th on the grid. The 20 year-old pitted for soft tyres on only the 5th lap, and the strategy initially appeared to pay dividends as he passed the top-5 bound Will Davison. However, it was only a short term gain for the Kiwi, who eventually finished in 27th after struggling on extremely worn tyres in the closing stages.
In terms of the championship standings with one race remaining in the weekend, Craig Lowndes has made a small indent into Jamie Whincup’s championship lead. The veteran will look to further cut the margin when he starts on the front row of the grid for the final 100 kilometre sprint race around the Hidden Valley circuit. Will Davison reclaimed third position in the standings as a result of Jason Bright’s disappointing 13th placed finish.
The final instalment of the SKYCITY Triple Crown will get underway later in the afternoon. David Reynolds starts from pole position ahead of Craig Lowndes.
