Craig Lowndes responds to criticism from Mark Winterbottom

Mark Winterbottom was left fuming after an incident with Craig Lowndes in the final race of the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park which saw Prodrive Racing Australia filing a protest against the Triple Eight Race Engineering driver.

”He is just trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s obviously got a lot of interest because there have been a lot of retweets and other people getting involved in it all,” said Lowndes to v8supercars.com.au.

The incident saw Winterbottom dropping down to finish 16th while Lowndes crossed the line in tenth position, with the Ford driver posting the following message on his Twitter account after the race: “I’m assuming that wasn’t on (sic) intentional? @craiglowndes888”.

“I haven’t spoken to him and he hasn’t spoken to me but if he wants to go on with it on social media that is his call. No it wasn’t intentional. I don’t go around hitting people off-track. That’s just part of motor racing, sometimes you get the good side and sometimes you get the bad side,” said Lowndes.

V8 Supercars driving standards observer Jason Bargwanna dismissed the incident after the race which saw Prodrive Racing Australia filing a protest that will be heard by the stewards in the coming race at the Sandown 500.

”It all started in turn one. I passed (Andre) Heimgartner through turn one and there is contact in the back of my car which put me off rack into the dirt and as I wiggled back on the track Frosty got a good run on both of us,” said Lowndes.

Lowndes sits third in the championship, 255 points behind Winterbottom and 81 points behind Chaz Mostert who gained over 90 points on his team mate this weekend.

“Dave Reynolds is up there and there is no doubt those guys want to finish with a 1-2-3 (in the championship). I know at the end of the year that is what their plan will be. There is all the hoo-hah about Frosty and I, but at the moment Frosty should be paying attention to Chaz,” said Lowndes.