Photo: FPR

Winterbottom dominates Barbagallo

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Ford Performance Racing made history at Barbagallo Raceway this weekend, sweeping the board with all three race wins for the first time in its V8 Supercar Championship Series career.
Local driver Garth Tander finished second giving him enough points to take the lead in the 2008 Championship as they move onto Sandown Raceway for round five.

The finish order did not change much from the start order in this third and final race at Barbagallo.

Winterbottom summed up his weekend: “We just had the best car this weekend. Sometimes it all just goes your way. It happened at Bahrain last year and here today but it can’t always be like that. We’ll be trying to make sure that next weekend we do the same though!

“My Race Engineer, Dan Kroehn, has been with the team all year but we’ve had our old engineer overlooking him. This is his first as a standalone and I think it’s a pretty good start; it’s the best you could hope for! He should be beaming with confidence and I know we’re only going to get better.

Winterbottom crossed the line 4 seconds ahead of the Toll Holden Racing Team Commodore of local driver Garth Tander. With his second place finish in race two, Tander was able jump into the lead in the overall drivers standings of this highly competitive Championship.

As in race two, the Vodafone duo of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes finished third and fourth. Although Craig blitzed the start in Race 3 leapfrogging from fourth to second but was unable to maintain this position as a consequence of a setup change.

“At the end of the race I felt like I was driving a drift car,” said Lowndes. “We made a change to the car between races but it took us in the wrong direction.”

“Overall, third and fourth for the weekend given this tracks history with our team is pretty good and I am pleased we have some positive points towards our team’s championship objective,” he continued.

With Will Davison in his Jim Beam Ford Falcon coming home in fifth meant Fords took four of the top five places.

Rick Kelly made it to sixth place for his HSV Dealer Team Commodore followed by the second Jim Beam Falcon of Steven Richards.

Unable to repeat his progress through the field from race two was James Courtney, he was also to finish in his start position of eighth.

Making up the top ten was Fabian Coulthard in his Glenfords Racing Falcon and the third Holden to finish in the top ten was Cameron McConville in his Team WOW car.