Frosty 3rd in frantic tassie race

3 April 2016

Oil at the hairpin with 4 laps to go

Prodrive Racing Australia's Mark Winterbottom has finished third in a hectic race five at Symmons Plains, making the podium after a pole position start. 

Winterbottom battled Shane Van Gisbergen for most of the race, losing a place to the Kiwi early but maintaining the pressure until a late-race incident changed the order. 

With just laps to go, both leading drivers were caught in oil spilt by teammate Cameron Waters, causing him to lose places to Will Davison and Craig Lowndes after veering off the track at the hairpin. 

Winterbottom was able to re-join in third to see out the race. The reigning V8 Supercars champion now sits fourth overall in this year's championship.

Cameron Waters endured an eventful race after starting from 10th. Waters made an incredible start, moving up to sixth on the first lap before being forced to stack in the first pit stop under safety car. 

Waters' challenge was hurt again in the second pit stop, with an engine sensor problem causing the engine to cut out half way up pit lane. 

Waters re-joined the race with the problem fixed before another engine issue ended his race with just laps to go. 

DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom - #1 The Bottle-O PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 1st 
Race 5: 3rd  
"It was a good weekend. To finally translate a qualifying into a result was nice. I'm satisfied because at the end of that race I had absolutely nothing left. I drove the wheels of it literally and we almost came away with a race win. It was cool to battle hard and stick the car in spots and have contact and stuff but it's just one spot in the car that's lacking and I know where it is so if we can fix it up we'll have a very quick car." 

Cameron Waters - #6 Monster Energy PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 10th  
Race 5: DNF 
"Qualifying was okay, we were 10th and managed to be only two 10ths from Mark (Winterbottom) which was cool. In the race I got an awesome start and was up to sixth and then the safety car came out and I had to double stack so I went back in the pack and was trucking along there, biding my time and then I came into the pits and the car shut off in pit lane. I'm not really sure what happened, they replaced something in the engine bay and we went again and then the engine went bang at the end so it's a pretty disappointing way to end a weekend but we can take lots of positives out of it."

Tim Edwards – Team Principal: 
"There are positives and negatives to take from today. The reality is that two of our drivers now have a good bag of points and Frosty is fourth overall in the championship and that's the thing we need to focus on. It's disappointing to have Cam and Chris finish the race like they did but we'll look at exactly what happened with Cam's car. Without having had a proper discussion about it the initial problem seems to have been an engine sensor and then another engine problem at the end of the race but we'll head back to the workshop and work it all out before Phillip Island."

TASMANIA SUPERSPRINT RESULTS – SUNDAY
RACE 5
1) Will Davison - Tekno
2) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight 
3) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
4) Scott McLaughlin
5) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing
DNF) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing

DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 
1) Will Davison – Tekno: 417
2) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight: 402
3) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 393
4) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team: 378
5) Garth Tander – HRT: 361
13) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing: 280

TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Triple Eight: 740
2) HRT: 724
3) Prodrive Racing (Australia): 658