Prodrive Racing (Australia)’s Chaz Mostert has recorded yet another podium finish for 2016 after starting from pole position in race 19 at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Despite a strong start, Mostert dropped to second place after the first lap at the hands of a charging Craig Lowndes.
After losing track position in the pit stop, a relatively late stop and strong pace in the second stint allowed Mostert to make his way through the field to third place before the final stop, where he stayed for the remainder of the race.
Mark Winterbottom endured a challenging weekend at his home track in Sydney, which was compounded by a tyre puncture early in race 19.
The puncture which was caused by a cord failure forced Winterbottom to pit early, resulting in two long stints for The Bottle-O driver.
Despite fighting for position throughout the race, Winterbottom was unable to hold on, eventually finishing 14th.
After strategy success on Saturday, the Super Black Racing Team’s Chris Pither employed a similar late-stop strategy on Sunday where he was the last to pit in each stint.
Fresher tyres and strong pace enabled Pither to make his way through the field to 13th position at race end.
A better day on track was welcomed by Cameron Waters but the young-gun says there is still work to do for the car six team.
Waters ran two long stints in race 19 but tyre life was again a problem for the Monster Energy racer who finished in 16th position.
DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom – #1 The Bottle-O PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 11th
Race 19: 14th
“It wasn’t a great weekend really results wise. We made improvements with the car in some areas but not others but breaking the cord in the tyre on lap seven just meant that you had two very long stints at the end and the car’s strength wasn’t tyre life so we sort of got double whammied a bit. We all worked hard and tried our best but that’s about all we could get out of it so it is what it is. We’ll re-group. We go again in a couple of weeks’ time and we’ll be good at Sandown so we just have to work hard and bounce back.”
Cameron Waters – #6 Monster Energy PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 14th
Race 19: 16th
“I qualified a bit better today than I did yesterday bit I didn’t quite finish the lap in quali which would have put me a fair bit further forward but it is what it is. In the race I got an okay start in the first two stints I struggled with tyre life but we came home really strong so I think the pace was there in the end but it was all a little bit too late in the end. We’ll have a think about it and re-group for Sandown.”
Chaz Mostert – #55 Supercheap Auto PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 1st
Race 19: 3rd
“It was a fantastic weekend as a whole. To get another pole today, I really didn’t expect it. It was really good, my car, over a one lap run with everything quite cold. It was awesome that my team gave me an awesome car. Definitely Brad and the guys on the 55 crew, we’ve been working hard all year to get a bit of consistency in the car and coming off the last test day it definitely felt like we had a good package. It’s great that it worked on what is probably one of the highest degradation tracks this weekend but we still need to make our car last a little bit longer on the tyre. This weekend we learnt a lot about the car and definitely the areas we need to work on. There’s a clear vision there and as a team we will go back and work hard. It’s fantastic to get a podium and finish third and I think be up in the top three or four for points for the weekend. I think we’re up to seventh or something in the championship which is a fantastic fight back from where we started earlier in the year. I’m really looking forward to Sandown, to kicking the endurance season off and hopefully keep these good consistent results coming.”
Chris Pither – #111 Super Black PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 16th
Race 19: 13th
“Yesterday we thought we had pretty good consistency and race pace so we decided to take a similar approach today and try and utilise that. It went pretty well. I was pretty happy with the fact that we managed to move forward in both races. I think our race pace was pretty strong, we just lacked a little bit of one lap pace in qualifying. I think there are a lot of positives to take out of the weekend in terms of race speed. I had a lot of fun and a few good battles passing cars so I enjoyed that but I’m looking forward to the endurance season now. I think we just need to unlock a little bit of qualifying pace and I think we can be in the mix.”
Tim Edwards – Team Principal:
“It was great to see Chaz get a podium out there today. He’s obviously got the one lap pace but his race pace is getting there as well which is good to see. We learnt quite a bit on top of what we looked at our test day this weekend so we’ll go back and look at all of those things again and work on what we need to improve before the endurance season kicks off at Sandown. The reality is that we had our challenges this weekend. There’s no denying that. Frosty and Cam in particular struggled a bit with their tyres so there are a few things we need to go over but the main thing is that we learnt a lot and we’ll go home and work even harder for the next one.”
RESULTS
RACE 19
1) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight
2) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight
3) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing
4) Fabian Coulthard – DJR
5) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight
13) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing
14) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
16) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing
DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 2109
2) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight: 1972
3) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight: 1911
4) Mark Winterbottom – Prodrive Racing: 1836
5) Scott McLaughlin – Garry Rogers Motorsport: 1749
7) Chaz Mostert – Prodrive Racing: 1535
19) Cameron Waters – Prodrive Racing: 993
20) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing: 925
TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Triple Eight: 4091
2) Prodrive Racing: 2854
3) HRT: 2782
