Winterbottom fastest on the Mountain

Mark Winterbottom is one step closer to exorcising his demons today after going fastest in the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 qualifying.
He and Ford Performance Racing team-mate Steve Richards dominated the iconic race last year in the Castrol FPR Falcon, but lost the lead in the closing stages when a rain shower caught Frosty out.

“I’m over what happened last year but back then it was burning pretty badly,” he said. “There’s highs and lows in motorsport but qualifying pole today is a high; I’m just lucky that Richo had me back as a team-mate!”

Winterbottom left it until the chequered flag to put in his fastest time in an extremely close V8 Supercar Championship Series qualifying session, elevating him from fourth to 0.0413s ahead of second-placed Jason Richards.

“It was good to get the time right at the end and build the suspense a little bit!” said Frosty. “It was quite hard to do because I only had one last crack. The first two sectors weren’t that special but I got a good last sector and got the time.”

Richo was ecstatic about the result after working long hours with the engineers to find the right set-up. “We’ve had to work a fair bit harder on it this year than last,” he said. “Right until that last segment we’ve been playing with the qualifying set up. We got it right at the right time so it all worked out but it’s been a bit tougher than it was last year for sure.”

FPR enduro driver Luke Youlden qualified 17th in the Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon just 0.9756 behind Winterbottom. The time, which was the third fastest of the none-regular drivers, would almost certainly have seen him start in the top ten at other rounds this year.