Tough Times in the Top End

A tough few days for all drivers didn't yield the results Prodrive Racing were after this weekend, however some consistent and smart driving saw all drivers make the most of a hard situation.

Cameron Waters had the best results of the PRA drivers on the weekend and finished in the top 10 in both races proving he is going to be the driver to watch this year.

Mark Winterbottom's car set up wasn't working for him this weekend and he struggled to get good times in qualifying but managed to significantly improve his spot in both the races.

Chaz Mostert continued his good start to the year in the first race with a top 5 finish, further cemeting himself to be a genuine contender.

 

Saturday

Mark Winterbottom had an off-track excursion on lap one but managed to catch the field shortly after. Winterbottom believes he and engineer Brendan Hogan will look for a different setup direction for the 200km hit-out in Race 12 after describing the car as ‘hard work’ to drive.

Chaz Mostert has taken a top five finish in Race 11. Despite running a clean race, Mostert had hoped to better optimise a strong race strategy after holding a 12-lap advantage on the cars around him. His nail-biting battle with Jamie Whincup wasn’t the only dramatic moment of the race with Jason Bright narrowly avoiding a collision with three laps to go.

Cameron Waters was pleased to gain yet another strong top-10 finish, further cementing himself as a top-ten championship contender.

 

Drivers' View 

Mark Winterbottom - #5
Race 11 Qualifying: 17th – 1m06.28s
Race 11: 14th
“The car wasn’t really there all day. It was hard work. Got tangled up at the first corner, I think I got nudged in the back and then into the side and spun around which is what happens when you’re in the pack like that. We raced our way back through which was okay but the car’s just not there. I can’t brake and get to the corner and it’s just hard work but we’ll have a look at it, tune it up and go in a different direction tomorrow for Race 12. We’ll see if we can get up there. We can obviously improve it which is the plan but it was a tough day.”

Cameron Waters - #6
Race 11 Qualifying: 10th – 1m06.04s
Race 1: 6th
“It was a pretty good day. Qualifying wasn’t that great but after practice it seemed pretty good because we were struggling a little bit there. 10th was good in qualifying and in the race I just tried to keep it clean and consistent and it worked really well for us. I’m really happy with sixth. We can work with that and make the car a little bit better tomorrow for Race 12 and hopefully we can sneak up a few more spots.”

Chaz Mostert - #55
Race 11 Qualifying: 7th - 1m06.00s
Race 11: 5th
“Good day with a top five result but I’m a bit disappointed with it. I think we had the best strategy by about 12 laps but we lacked a bit of power to get around the guys in front. I’m a bit disappointed but overall pretty happy to still finish in the top five with a straight car. It’s just another opportunity that I felt we could have optimised a bit better.”

Tim Edwards
Team Principal
“There were positives and negatives on Saturday Race 11 but it’s nice to have a few more positives to talk about compared to practice. Chaz and Cam both ran really good races. I was pleased with their smart driving and how they tackled it today. For all cars to improve on their starting positions was good but we still have quite a bit of work to do. We’re not where we need to be. We know we can do better so now it’s about making sure we get to that point. Today we proved that we can be competitive, but in order to win races we need to qualify better and that’s what we were missing today.”

Results - Race 11

1) Fabian Coulthard – DJR Team Penske
2) Scott McLaughlin – DJR Team Pekse
3) Nick Percat – Brad Jones Racing
5) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing
6) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing
14) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team

 

Sunday

Cameron Waters has continued to cement himself as a driver to watch in Race 12 at Hidden Valley Raceway, coming home in ninth place in what has been a tough weekend for the team. Running 10th for the majority of the race after losing positions in the first round of pit stops, a puncture for James Moffat saw Waters move inside the top 10.

Winterbottom’s Ford was subject to yet another major setup change between qualifying and the race While Frosty says the change was helpful, it created a new set of issues for The Bottle-O FG X. Electing to pit on the opening two laps, Mark Winterbottom was able to make the most of the undercut, finishing in 14th place.

After qualifying in 13th, Chaz Mostert endured a tough day in the office, steering a less-than-desirable car home to 17th place. Mostert was pushed back in the pack after taking on a big fuel load at his first stop but was unable to move as far through the field as intended in the final stint.

 

Drivers' View 

Mark Winterbottom - #5
Qualifying: 20th – 1m06.30s
Race 12: 14th
"We put Cam’s complete setup in for that race and when you look at our lap times we were a bit quicker than him, so it’s good for your self-confidence to know that when you’re driving the same car you can be as quick or quicker. I feel like that’s a positive. Now this setup has unlocked other issues that I think we could tune easier than what we could tune before. We went from 20th to 14th and it’s pretty well just a train of cars when you’re out there. To move forward some spots was good but it was a tough day for 14th, a hot and tough day.”

Cameron Waters - #6
Qualifying: 9th – 1m06.00s
Race 12: 9th
"It was a pretty tough old day. It was really hot in the car but my fitness is pretty good so I got through that okay. I didn’t really have the pace though. I thought we’d have a better race car than what we did. We learnt a lot though this weekend and we’ll bounce back in Townsville for sure.”

Chaz Mostert - #55
Qualifying: 13th – 1m06.10s
Race 12: 17th
"It wasn’t our ideal day. We had a bit of bad luck at the finish there. This weekend has been an absolute mess for us. We couldn’t get on top of the car. We tried heaps of different things; it’s just something fundamental with our car that somehow didn’t work up here which is really unique. I thought we made some really good gains from last year coming into this weekend and this is the first event this year where we ended up worse than we did last year. Not overly happy obviously but it’s one of those things. We need to keep building and working on it in the down times and build it into something good for the next round. I think our normal car will work at the next event, it just didn’t work here for some reason.”

Tim Edwards
Team Principal
“We definitely struggled out there this weekend. There’s something that just didn’t work for us here this year. While there were some good results this weekend all four cars had their challenges so there’s a lot for us to look at in this week’s de-brief. I was pleased with Cam’s maturity across the three days. He kept a calm head in very challenging conditions and that’s a credit to him and the work that he’s been doing behind the scenes.”

 

Results - Race 12
1) Scott McLaughlin – DJR Team Penske
2) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight
3) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight
9) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing
14) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
17) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing

Championship Points
1) Fabian Coulthard – DJR Team Penske: 1330
2) Scott McLaughlin – DJR Team Penske: 1320
3) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 1314
5) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing: 1026
6) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team: 924
9) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing: 889

Team Championship Points
1) DJR Team Penske: 2685
2) Triple Eight: 2466
3) Prodrive Racing Australia: 1848