Winterbottom climbs the order after penalty filled weekend

Mark Winterbottom climbed from fifth to second after the V8 Supercars weekend at Winton, a weekend marked by a heated debate on penalties.
“There’s something very wrong when we lost a race at Adelaide when Jamie (Whincup) was given a pit lane penalty. Then you have got a similar infraction here during a pit stop and there is a completely different penalty, which you would take every day of the week,” said Triple Eight Race Engineering owner Roland Dane.

The penalty Dane is referring to is the one given to Walkinshaw Racing after a tyre from Tim Slade’s car rolled out in the fast lane during one of his pit stops in the final race of the weekend at Winton. Instead of a drive through penalty, the team was given a 3000 AUD fine and had 30 points removed in the teams championship.

“I mean we would pay $3000 for a race win. That’s just utter madness. It just devalues the whole sport. Absolutely devalues it,” said Dane.

Another controversy was the number of pit lane speed limit penalties issued during the third race. Five drivers were given a drive through penalty, including Brad Jones Racing driver Fabian Coulthard who was fighting for a podium finish.

“I felt like I was definitely under the speed but whatever the system is you have to abide by it so it’s pretty disappointing. That’s life though, you’ve got to roll with the punches and overall it’s been a good weekend. We’ve had two poles and two podiums so we really can’t leave here too disappointed but on the downside we could have finished the weekend a whole heap better than we did,” said Coulthard who dropped from second to third in the championship.

Nissan driver Rick Kelly received a drive through penalty as well in the final race and calls for the V8 Supercars organisation to look over their method of monitoring the pit speed limit.

“We’re dumbfounded as to how this keeps happening. There’s an issue and we need to get to the bottom of it. It’s really tarnishing the events from everyone’s point of view. Teams, sponsors, fans; it’s not what we’re after from racing. We’ve got multi-million dollar sponsors that are involved in the sport and we’re getting done for things that we can’t even see happened,” said Kelly to speedcafe.com.

Scott McLaughlin, also penalised in the third race for exceeding the pit speed limit, had a tough weekend where he retired from the first race due to an engine failure, had to pit and lost three laps in the second race due to a battery change while leading. The Volvo Polestar Racing driver started from pole in the third race, but dropped to 16th position after his penalty.

“I came into the pit lane and apparently I sped. I didn’t speed across the timing loop, apparently it was by the radar gun. I can honestly say that I didn’t speed or try to speed. It was just unfortunate for the boys in the team,” said McLaughlin.

Triple Eight Race Engineering drivers Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup struggled to find pace during the Winton weekend, but with Lowndes still managing to hold on to the championship lead, albeit having it reduced to 28 points over Winterbottom.

“We survived and if that was our worst weekend for the year then we’d be happy. Disappointing is the word that I think sums up the weekend. We didn’t quite get on top of the car setup so we struggled more than we expected. We made some pretty big changes from the car off the back of yesterday and it gave us a good direction but we still have a lot to learn from when we go through the data. A little frustrating but that’s motor racing – you get on with it and now we’ve got three weeks to prepare before New Zealand,” said Lowndes.

The victory for Ford Performance Racing driver Winterbottom was his first with his new engineer Grant McPherson, an important boost for the team according to the Ford driver.

“It was nice to enjoy the closing laps with such a big lead and it was great to share such an important home win with all the fans. To get a win with my new engineer Grant (McPherson) is a big confidence boost and this weekend we worked really closely and this success will provide great confidence throughout the team and pays everyone back for their hard work,” said Winterbottom.

V8 Supercars continues in three weeks with the ITM 500 Auckland weekend in New Zealand.