Photo: V8 Supercars Media

Prodrive Racing looking comfortable after day one at Bathurst

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Prodrive Racing Australia are looking strong despite not ending Thursday at the top of the time sheets. The Ford squad are chasing their third straight victory at Mount Panorama, and their three full-time entries this weekend finished Thursday in positions 2-4 after practice.

The Campbellfield-based squad have dominated this year’s V8 Supercars Championship, taking 15 wins from 24 races so far this season, with drivers Mark Winterbottom, Chaz Mostert and David Reynolds occupying positions 1-3 in the drivers’ standings heading into this weekend.

The situation for Prodrive is almost the reverse to arch-rivals Triple Eight Race Engineering heading to Bathurst to last year. While Triple Eight came in as shoo-ins for the title at that point of the season, it’s Prodrive that have a championship at stake, but as always, whenever anyone heads to Mount Panorama, the championship plays second fiddle to a Bathurst victory.

“Bathurst is the race that you look forward to all year,” said Winterbottom.

“It’s the most enjoyable event and the most rewarding as well. This year we’re leading the points and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever lead going into Bathurst points wise, I’ve always been close but this year we’ve got a good margin. You’ve almost got to forget about that and try and win the race because it’s just how important it is so we’ll be going there and trying to win it.”

Chaz Mostert won last year’s Bathurst 1000 from last on the grid, and with his car famously buried in the wall when the track began to break apart in the early stages of the race, then sharing the #6 Ford Falcon FG with V8 Supercars veteran Paul Morris.

This weekend, Mostert is sharing with Development Series driver Cameron Waters, who shone in the co-driver session, setting the fifth fastest time in the new Falcon FG X.

“Obviously I had the win last year and our results this year have been pretty awesome,” said Mostert. “We’ve got a good track record going into Bathurst this year. Obviously trying to defend it will be the hardest thing but I’ve got full faith in the team. The FG X has been as fast as ever at recent rounds so I really enjoy going around that place, as does every other driver in the category but it’s pretty special trying to defend the crown this year. We’ll just have to wait and see how we roll out and see where we end up. Cam is a very quick young driver and he drove a great race at Sandown so it’ll be great to see what he can do around Bathurst.”