FPR's All Weather Performance

Frosty finishes 2nd and Richo 9th in Practice

Extreme conditions at Winton Motor Raceway did not upset the V8 Supercar Championship Series order during today's practice session, with Ford Performance Racing still rising to the top.

Despite gale-force winds and torrential downpours, the Melbourne-based team posted the second and ninth fastest times, Steve Richards missing out on a top three slot in the Castrol FPR Falcon thanks to debris on the track during his flying lap.

Championship leader Mark Winterbottom continued his unflappable consistency, topping the time sheets for most of the afternoon despite working to resolve an engine misfire in the Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon. He was edged off the top spot in the last few minutes however by HRT's Garth Tander.

Qualifying for round eight begins tomorrow (Saturday) at 11.15am.

Mark Winterbottom #5 Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon
'We were on top there for the majority of the session but got out-lapped on the greens [tyres]. We're there or there abouts though, so I'm not worried. The weather is obviously a bit hard; very tough conditions for strategy and set-up and we had a couple of issues to deal with in that session. Still, we did the changes that we had to do and got second fastest in the process. I'm pretty pleased with that.'

Steve Richards #6 Castrol FPR Falcon
'We were on for a lap that was good enough for the top three but someone had come off at turn 11 and dragged water onto the track. We slipped wide and ultimately didn't post the best lap we could have.

'When the circuit was wet the car was fantastic for grip and lap time. We were second quickest in the wet, less than a tenth-of-a-second off the fastest time, and we had to pass a car that lap! I was up to speed in the first three laps out on wets; when the car gives you the confidence to push that much in these conditions it's always encouraging.'

Tim Edwards Team Principal
'This is our last bogie round. Although it's our home test track, it's certainly not been a successful place for us in the past. We know why that is, and we've certainly addressed the reasons in our testing so I'd expect a big improvement, but you can't design a car especially for one track. We're optimistic that we've got a very good race car but we may struggle in qualifying.'

V8 Supercar Championship Series Round 8 Queensland Raceway PRACTICE
1 Garth Tander HRT 1:23.6947
2 Mark Winterbottom #5 Orrcon Steel Ford Credit FPR Falcon 1:24.0633
3 Fabian Coulthard PCR 1:24.0933
4 Rick Kelly TWR 1:24.0982
5 Craig Lowndes 888 1:24.1183
6 Russell Ingall PMM 1:24.1510
7 Jamie Whincup 888 1:24.1902
8 Mark Skaife HRT 1:24.2428
9 Steve Richards #6 Castrol FPR Falcon 1:24.2999