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Frosty wins thriller in the tron

Frosty wins thriller in the tron

30 April 2012

Frosty wins final race in Hamilton

Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom has claimed a thrilling win in the final ever V8 Supercars race in Hamilton where he held off defending Champion Jamie Whincup to win by less-than one second.

Winterbottom started second behind team-mate Will Davison who claimed his first pole of the season in qualifying.

He led into the first turn and from there was not challenged until the closing laps where Whincup started to close down the near three-second gap he had established.

Winterbottom used all his skill to hold off his rival and claimed a popular win.

Davison ran in tandem with Winterbottom in the early stages as the pair established a substantial lead over the chasing pack.

A safety car bunched the field up and from that point Davison struggled with tyre wear. He slipped to third behind Whincup, though was still comfortably faster than the rest of the field and came home third to maintain his overall series lead.

Team-mate David Reynolds made up for yesterday’s disappointing retirement to claim seventh after recovering from early lap errors which dropped him down the field. He drove a measured race to claim a solid haul of points.

In qualifying Davison claimed his first pole for the year in leading FPR to a 1-2 finish with Winterbottom second – a hundredth of a second behind.

The battle for pole was tight, though the FPR pair gained the required advantage in the closing minute.

Reynolds showed that the factory Fords were the cars to beat by qualifying just a tenth of a second further back in fifth.

DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom – #5 Orrcon Steel FPR Ford

Qualifying: 2^nd – 1m21.98s

Race result: 1^st – Best lap: 1m22.87s (NEW LAP RECORD)
“The car was very good on fresh tyres and I tried to maintain my gap, though the safety car didn’t help that. Jamie then came on strong and by the last lap it was a close run thing, though I used the big screens at turns one and two to see where he was as my mirrors were folded in so that made it a little easier to defend. The team this weekend has ticked another thing off our list. To win both races and run at the front of the field from the start of the weekend is a great achievement. To win the Mark Porter trophy is very special and will be something that I will always cherish.”

Will Davison – #6 Tradingpost FPR Ford

Qualifying: 1^st – 1m21.97s

Race result: 3^rd – Best lap: 1m22.92s
“I didn’t have a brilliant start and Frosty had a rocket off the line and that was sort of it. We were going along nicely for a while, though I started to struggle late in my stints. I also racked up four kerb strikes early in the race and that made things more difficult. I then knocked the steering on the tyre bundle at the chicane so from there on I was pretty nervous. The car improved in the last stint and I was running on a similar pace to the leaders but third was all I could achieve in the end. Full credit to the team. We are now reaping the benefits of the hard work we’ve been putting in and I couldn’t be happier for them.”

David Reynolds – #55 The Bottle-O FPR Ford

Qualifying: 6^th – 1m22.16s

Race result: 7^th – Best lap: 1m23.18s
“It was a relief to finish today. We just didn’t have the race pace today and the car wasn’t working as it did yesterday for some reason. Qualifying was ok but the race didn’t really work out as I hoped. Otherwise I had a good race despite a delay in the pit stop and that dropped me down the order. That then had a compound effect on my track position so there wasn’t much I could do. A top effort by the team otherwise and they should be proud of their efforts this weekend.”

Tim Edwards – FPR Team Principal
“Today was certainly a lot closer than yesterday but thankfully the result was the same for the team. Mark drove out of his skin all day and truly deserved to record his first win of the year. With Will on pole and finishing on the podium it has been a great day all round for FPR. Dave didn’t have the best opening sequence but he recovered, drove his own race and was again the best of the chasing pack. We thought Hamilton was going to be one of the harder tracks for us to perform at so it is immensely satisfying to have performed so strongly throughout. Everyone in the team is ecstatic and rightly so.”

ITM400 HAMILTON – RACE 2

RESULTS:

1) Mark Winterbottom – Ford Performance Racing

2) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight

3) Will Davison – Ford Performance Racing

4) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight

5) Fabian Coulthard – Brad Jones Racing

7) David Reynolds – Ford Performance Racing

DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP

1) Will Davison – Ford Performance Racing: 846 points

2) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 825

3) Mark Winterbottom – Ford Performance Racing: 657