Frosty races to 3rd place

9 July 2016

Frosty finishes 3rd and Chaz 4th.

Prodrive Racing (Australia)'s Mark Winterbottom has claimed a podium finish in race 14 at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 after a smart strategy helped him move through the field.

Despite racing a bent car for most of the race, Winterbottom moved from his p5 starting position, overtaking teammate Chaz Mostert in the dying laps to claim third overall.

After a strong start and a good set of pit stops, Mostert moved to second position during a long battle with Shane van Gisbergen.

Despite being unable to hold onto the podium position due to tyre life, Mostert was pleased to finish fourth with a relatively straight car.

Monster Energy racer Cameron Waters experienced an up and down race after starting 14th.

Waters ran strong in 13th for the majority of the 200km hit-out, before being caught up at the restart to eventually finish 16th.

Chris Pither endured a tough day on track, battling with the #111 car for the majority of the race.

Work will be done overnight to fix issues with the Super Black Racing entry, as well as a bent steering column on car one.

DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom - #1 The Bottle-O PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 5th 
Race 14: 3rd 
"The car was a lot better than in quali but it was sort of the best of the rest today which was cool. That second stint was actually good for us. We went out there late and ran out of fuel so we had to pit at some stage but it was as good as we could do really with the speed we had and I never got close enough to Shane (van Gisbergen) in that last one to have a go. We had a good battle. We still need to find some speed but a podium is still good and I'm really with the day and the result and pit stops and all that sort of stuff. I think we maximised the speed we had."
 
Cameron Waters - #6 Monster Energy PRA Ford: 12th – 1m12.97s
Qualifying: 14th 
Race 14: 16th 
"Qualified 14th for the race which was okay but didn't get the best start. We pitted pretty early to get some clean air which worked well and we ended up running in a good spot for most of the race. Our pit stops definitely helped get me further up the field and in a good position. I think we were close to the top ten at one point but the restart sent me back. I got knocked around pretty bad and couldn't hold onto it. We'll have a look at the data and work on it and hopefully we can get in a better spot for tomorrow." 
 
Chaz Mostert - #55 Supercheap Auto PRA Ford:
Qualifying: 4th 
Race 14: 4th 
"We started the race off pretty well, I dropped back one spot but the car was quick so we got a bit further up. We were running alright but tyre life hurt us a bit. Just couldn't hold onto the tyres at the end there and hold onto the position. The battle with van Gis was good. I got in front of him but just couldn't stay there. I was trying really hard but the car was doing burnouts over the kerbs but we'll tune her up overnight. I'm happy with fourth, it's a pretty good result."
 
Chris Pither - #111 Super Black PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 22nd 
Race 14: 20th 
"I'm pretty disappointed with today to be honest. I was hoping to qualify better than what we did. We set exactly the same time as what we did on green tyres yesterday and didn't really manage to improve so that made it hard. We had a couple of little dramas in the race that cost us big chunks of time. It was just a bit of bad luck in that respect but it basically put us down a lap. We'll make a few changes overnight and see if we can improve it for tomorrow."
 
Tim Edwards – Team Principal: 
"It was good to get a podium today. There were a few good battles out there for all of our guys, particularly for Chaz and then with him for Frosty but a third and a fourth is a good result. It's a good bag of points. Cam was unlucky at the end to be put back where he was and Chris really didn't have the race he was after. He struggled with a few issues for most of it so there is work to do overnight to improve on certain things which we will fix ahead of qualifying tomorrow."

DUNLOP SERIES
Prodrive Racing (Australia)'s Jack Le Brocq and Garry Jacobson have dominated play at the Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, finishing first and second respectively after starting on the front row. In a non-eventful race, Le Brocq lead into turn one, to eventually get out to a five second lead over Jacobson. The number six racer also created a four second lead over third position. The Dunlop Series campaigners will qualify again tomorrow ahead of race two which will decide the round's winner.

Jack Le Brocq - #5 GoGetta Racing PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 1st 
Race 1: 1st 
"I'm pretty happy with today, the car is feeling really good and the guys are doing an awesome job helping me feel comfortable in it. It's been good over the past couple of months I've learnt a lot from the team and Perth was quite good. We've had a good couple of test days as well. It was a great day for us, it's awesome to have the championship lead. We've just got to make sure we keep doing a good job and maintain it and do what we did today, tomorrow."

Garry Jacobson - #6 Challenger Valve PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 2nd
Race 1: 2nd 
"We had a pretty good day today. We qualified well and managed to stay clean in the race and finish strong in second. Getting a good gap out to the rest of the field really showed that the guys are doing an awesome job on the car and that we've got an awesome package. There's not much to look at overnight, we just need to make sure we did what we did today again or do even better."

RESULTS
RACE 14
1) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight
2) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight
3) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
4) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing
5) Will Davison - Tekno
16) Cameron Waters – Prodrive Racing: 685
20) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing: 550

DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 
1) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 1425
2) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight: 1342
3) Mark Winterbottom – Prodrive Racing: 1341
4) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight: 1314
5) Scott McLaughlin – Garry Rogers Motorsport: 1263
11) Chaz Mostert – Prodrive Racing: 989
18) Cameron Waters – Prodrive Racing: 742
21) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing: 595

TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Triple Eight: 2777
2) Prodrive Racing: 2098
3) HRT: 2029