PRODRIVE RACING – CLIPSAL 500 SUNDAY
Prodrive Racing (Australia)'s Chaz Mostert has taken home third place in race two at the Clipsal 500 in what he has named his best Clipsal weekend to date. Starting from fourth position, a clever call from engineer Adam De Borre to save a set of tyres in qualifying allowed Mostert to attack on greens following the final pit stop, enabling him to maintain a strong gap to the car behind. Yesterday's issues with brake locking for both Mostert and Bright had been rectified, producing a much better car for the 78-lap race. Cameron Waters built on his points haul in race two, finishing eighth to take home two top 10 finishes for the weekend. Waters is confident the consistency can remain in 2017 following momentum built in Adelaide. Fuel conservation played a large part in the final stage of the race, with both Waters and Winterbottom conscious of consumption. Winterbottom, who ran in the top 10 for most of the race, fell to finish 14th. Jason Bright believes issues in the number 56 have now been ironed out after a pleasing run in race two. Starting from 18th, Bright moved to 15th early in the piece, where he would stay for the remainder of the race.
DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom - #5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 12th – 1m19.90s
Race 2: 14th
"Not the best day. There were a few mistakes. We made a good start and I feel like I raced alright but just a few mistakes made us fall back. We were saving fuel and it's not a car that you can save fuel with because the brake locking is an issue so normally the way you save fuel is to brake deeper and it's impossible with the car I had. Not a good day and not the way I wanted to start this season."
Cameron Waters - #6 Monster Energy PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 9th – 1m19.79s
Top 10 Shootout: 7th – 1m20.73s
Race 2: 8th
"It's been an awesome weekend. To come out and be consistently inside the top 10 all weekend is what I wanted. The fourth yesterday was unreal. We can take a lot of momentum out of this. Across the weekend we made the car better and better. My new engineer Brad and I are working really well together. I think that relationship and the team are only going to grow stronger across the year."
Chaz Mostert - #55 Supercheap Auto PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 5th – 1m19.54s
Top 10 Shootout: 4th – 1m20.22s
Race 2: 3rd
"I can't really believe today. The goal was to try and maintain where I started or try to stay around there for a top five but to get some champagne today for the boys is pretty cool. It's awesome for my engineer Adam (De Borre). He's worked really hard over the break, coming up with ideas. It's also a really great for the mechanics, they've put in a lot of hard work from last year until the test day and then to here. It's really rewarding to give them some champagne, give them some points and a good start to the year. Now it's important that we keep building on this. We know we've still got a lot of work to do. Those other guys still have a little bit on us but we're up to the challenge. We'll punch above our weight and we'll work out what we need to do to challenge them."
Jason Bright - #56 MEGA Bulk Fuels PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 18th – 1m19.99s
Race 2: 15th
"Really happy with the car. We're still learning all the time. Yesterday was a struggle for different reasons. We started pretty far behind the eight ball this weekend. I felt like our weekend or year started today. I was pretty comfortable with our pace. We didn't make any mistakes. We were racing around guys that were in the top 10 yesterday. I think it was a good way to end the weekend. We can take a lot of positives from it even though we started pretty tough but I'm looking forward to the next one."
Tim Edwards – Team Principal:
"Another good result today. Great racing from Chaz to get up to third and get us on the podium this weekend. I knew these cars had the ability so to execute it was great. Two top 10 finishes from Cam is fantastic. He has raced in a really mature manner all weekend so it's great to see him get these results but not everything is all sunshine and rainbows. There's still quite a bit to work on which was evident today but we've got three weeks until the Grand Prix and we'll be working hard in the meantime."
DUNLOP SUPER2 SERIES
Prodrive Racing (Australia)'s Garry Jacobson has completed a consistent opening round at the Clipsal 500, finishing seventh in today's final race. Following a controversial start to the race, a safety car re-start saw Jacobson fall to eighth before moving past Jack Perkins in a late-race battle. Josh Kean's weekend went from bad to worse in race three with confusion on the grid at the start of the race leading to a day-ending crash for the number 5 driver. The car suffered significant damage to the front end after veering into the wall on the front straight, following a hit from behind from Kurt Kostecki. The race start procedure and incident will be reviewed by race control.
Garry Jacobson - #1 McQuinn Electrical PRA Ford:
Race 3: 7th
Round: 7th
"I think I got as much out of the car as I could in the third race. I learned a lot about the car again and the changes that we made, we made a positive direction with our speed. Still a fair bit to go in terms of being where we need to be. We'll be working very hard now going to Symmons Plains in order to get the car to be that little bit nicer to drive so I can do my job. Looking forward to focusing on the next round. The car looks fantastic, we've had nothing but good comments on it and I think the 'Nice Garry' hashtag has caught on thanks to the crew putting it on the car. Everyone is still working really hard so I'm sure the results will come."
Josh Kean - #5 Wynns Racing PRA Ford:
Race 3: DNF
Round: 21st
"Just not our weekend. I don't think anyone was sure of what was happening at the start of that race but I waited for all of the lights to go out before I went, had an awesome start off the line then got hit behind by Kostecki and that was pretty much the end of my race. It was really disappointing and definitely not how I wanted to end my weekend here."
RESULTS
RACE 2
1) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight
2) Scott McLaughlin – DJR Team Penske
3) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing
4) James Courtney – Walkinshaw Racing
5) Fabian Coulthard – DJR Team Penske
8) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing
14) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
15) Jason Bright – MEGA Racing
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight: 300
2) Fabian Coulthard – DJR Team Penske: 249
3) James Courtney – Walkinshaw Racing: 249
4) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing: 213
5) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing: 210
13) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team: 123
18) Jason Bright – MEGA Racing: 102
TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Triple Eight: 504
2) DJR Team Penske: 441
3) Walkinshaw Racing: 354
4) Prodrive Racing Australia: 333