Perth SuperSprint
Days til next race
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FPR wins Clipsal with a 1-2 podium
4 March 2012
Frosty 2nd after a solid race
Ford Performance Racing won its first Clipsal 500 in grand style with a 1-2 finish for Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom. The pair proved they had the best fuel economy of the field and claimed a comfortable double to erase memories of yesterday’s heartbreaking second place for Davison. Winterbottom qualified on the second row and Davison on the third, but by the first corner the two factory Fords were third and fourth. Davison jumped his team-mate during the first pit stop sequence and the duo then set about moving further forward. They both passed Saturday winner Jamie Whincup on lap 37 before making a similar move 10 laps later on Garth Tander to grab the top two places. From there they controlled the pace and eased to a convincing win – the first 1-2 result for car #5 and #6 since Darwin 2008. Newcomer David Reynolds made up for his error yesterday to drive a controlled race to seventh place at the chequered flag. He spent much of the race in 10thplace before making a late charge thanks to superior fuel efficiency over his rivals. DRIVERS’ VIEW Will Davison – #6 Tradingpost FPR Ford Qualifying: 6th – 1m20.91 Race result: 1st – Best lap: 1m22.92s “It feels pretty magic to win today – my first for the team, the first for my engineer Grant (McPherson) and the first ever for Tradingpost in V8 Supercars so a lot of people are happy today. Yesterday I thought I would finally get the monkey off my back, but it wasn’t to be so I could not be happier with today’s win. It has been a long time coming so I am sure we will enjoy it. The car was just amazing in the race. We adjusted it on the run and fuel economy was again our strength which should come in handy as the year progresses. It was great to have Mark finish second as the team really deserve it. This one is for them.” Mark Winterbottom – #5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford Qualifying: 3rd – 1m20.64s Race result: 2nd – Best lap: 1m21.8s (fastest lap) David Reynolds – #55 The Bottle-O FPR Ford Qualifying: 11th – 1m21.91s Race result: 7th – 1m22.22s CLIPSAL 500 – RACE 2 RESULTS: 1) Will Davison – Ford Performance Racing 2) Mark Winterbottom – Ford Performance Racing 3) Garth Tander – HRT 4) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight 5) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight 7) David Reynolds – Ford Performance Racing
“I am really pleased for the team today as we have proven that our pace is genuine and that when everything comes together we are going to be contenders. Will drove a great race and the overall strategy allowed us to look at the long game and come home strong. My car had a little bit of understeer early but we sorted that out as the race went on. It was nice to get fastest lap as well as it just confirms that we were both quick and fuel efficient.”
“I had a brilliant day. It is amazing how much better you feel when everything is going your way. The team worked very hard to repair the car last night so I wasn’t as aggressive today to ensure I brought it home. After yesterday I had amazing support from the team and that was an unexpected given what happened so that was a nice bonus to the weekend. The team did so well to win, though I plan to join Will and Mark at the front once I’ve learnt the car a bit more and adapted the car a little to suit my style, or the car to suit me.”
Tim Edwards – FPR Team Principal
“It is encouraging and almost a sense of relief that the results we carried achieved late last year have carried over as a lot of people didn’t think we would be able to carry that into 2012. But not only that, we have improved since we won at Homebush. Our strategy was right, our pit stops were perfect and the drivers drove faultlessly which allowed us to achieve so much this weekend. This result is great for Will as he is a confidence driver and good results boost him so this result will likely be the first of many. We have two drivers that are going to fight each other pretty hard for the championship this year. To win both Dunlop Series races by more than eight seconds, combined with our main series results just reaffirms the speed we have in the cars.”
