PRODRIVE RACING – DARWIN TRIPLE CROWN SUNDAY WRAP
Prodrive Racing Australia’s 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 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. Electing to pit on the opening two laps, Jason Bright and Mark Winterbottom were able to make the most of the undercut, finishing in 13th and 14th place respectively. Winterbottom’s Ford was subject to yet another major setup change between qualifying and the race, which while Frosty says was helpful, created a new set of issues for The Bottle-O FG X. Jason Bright described the race as a sprint across 200 kilometres with the level of competition high in sweltering conditions. 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 The Bottle-O PRA Ford:
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. 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 Monster Energy PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 9th – 1m06.00s
Top-10 Shootout: 8th – 1m06.58s
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 Supercheap Auto PRA Ford:
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.”
Jason Bright – #56 MEGA Bulk Fuels PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 17th – 1m06.19s
Race 12: 13th
“I felt like our race pace was alright again but we just need to find that tenth of two in qualifying and it’ll make life a lot easier. It seemed, looking ahead, that we had the pace to run inside the top 10 if we can qualify there. The car was good. I had a nice clean first lap compared to yesterday and I spent most of the race by myself so it was reasonably uneventful but it was pretty much a sprint the whole way which was a lot of fun.”
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.”
RACE 12 RESULTS
1) Scott McLaughlin – DJR Team Penske
2) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight
3) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight
4) Fabian Coulthard – DJR Team Penske
5) Tim Slade – Brad Jones Racing
9) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing
13) Jason Bright – MEGA 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
4) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight: 1152
5) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing: 1026
6) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team: 924
9) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing: 889
21) Jason Bright – MEGA Racing: 555
TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIP
1) DJR Team Penske: 2685
2) Triple Eight: 2466
3) Prodrive Racing Australia: 1848
