FPR hope for better race two after tyre error

Ford Performance Racing’s hope of a great result today after a great run in qualifying, disappeared as quickly as the grip on Winterbottom’s tyres.

FPR had claimed the second row with Mark Winterbottom starting 3rd, and Steven Richards 4th – but a call to just change the rear tyres for both drivers in the team’s pit stops hurt the FPR drivers late race pace.

“Where things went wrong for us today was our reliance on last year’s data which sent us all the signals that running fresh ‘soft’ tyres only on the rear after our stop would be enough to maintain a solid race pace … obviously that wasn’t the case and we suffered dearly.” said Steve Richards.

The team was set for a podium finish with Mark Winterbottom, but the team are looking forward to tomorrow, with a strategic advantage they’ll need to take advantage of.

Richards explains:
“The upside of that is we have a fresh full set of ‘greens’ to run tomorrow whereas the other teams ahead of us don’t so if we can maintain the pace we enjoyed early in the race, tomorrow should see us fare a lot better.”