Mostert finishes 4th

27 August 2016

Frosty finishes 11th after a challenging race, where nothing went his way.

Prodrive Racing (Australia)'s Chaz Mostert has taken home his fourth pole position for 2016, while also finishing fourth in race 18 at the Sydney Motorsport Park SuperSprint.

Mostert eclipsed his own qualifying lap record to put the Supercheap Auto FG X on the front row, putting him in the lead for the most pole positions this year.

After a strong start off the line Mostert lead into turn one but was unable to hold on, dropping to third after the first lap to eventually finish fourth.

Chris Pither took home the most improved award for race 18, with a late pit stop enabling him to monster through the field in the final stint.

The late stop was a strong strategy call for the Super Black Racing team, allowing the Kiwi to finish 14th.  

Mark Winterbottom's speedy pace in early in the day saw him set the fastest time in this morning's practice session, but due to changing conditions he unable to convert in qualifying.

After starting ninth, a solid start enabled Winterbottom to run mid-pack for most of the race before struggles with tyre life saw him finish 11th.

Cameron Waters also battled through race 18, struggling to get the tyre to work with him for most of the day. An early pit stop and further struggles with the soft tyre saw Waters drop to finish 20th.


DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom - #1 The Bottle-O PRA Ford: 
Qualifying:
 9th 
Race 18: 11th 
"Just not our day today. It was a tough day but we soldiered on. We'll look at the data tonight and go quicker again tomorrow and try and improve it. Once you're in the pack you're kind of just stuck there. It's pretty tough conditions but at least Chaz got pole and that's still a positive. We’ll work all night and hopefully get a good result."
 
Cameron Waters - #6 Monster Energy PRA Ford: 
Qualifying:
 19th 
Race 18: 20th 
"I kind of just struggled with the car all day. I just can’t get it off the corner which doesn't help with tyre life. Our strategy was going alright. We moved forward a fair way and then tyre life was the story of my day really. It just blew the tyres off it and we went backwards."
 
Chaz Mostert - #55 Supercheap Auto PRA Ford: 
Qualifying:
 1st 
Race 18: 4th 
"It’s pretty tricky out there today. To start on pole was awesome. I didn't expect to be on the front row here with the degradation and how stiff the competition is but it was awesome to be the quickest. I had a good start but on my warm up lap I changed the procedure a little bit which didn't really work out for us. It didn't have the proper tyre surface temp for the first couple of laps and I really suffered with that, losing out a few spots. I'll try and work on that for tomorrow. If we can keep a similar car to what we had today I think we have a pretty good race car for the longer race tomorrow and if we can try and get on the podium tomorrow then it'd be an awesome day but if not, then I'm really happy with the top fives at the moment. It's all about putting the little blocks in place and trying to get really comfortable in the car and trying to get a good base with it. I learnt a lot at the test day. The car we brought here this weekend is quite a bit different to what we normally run so overall it's been a good start to the weekend, we just need to finish it off with another top five."
 
Chris Pither - #111 Super Black PRA Ford: 
Qualifying:
 17th 
Race 18: 14th 
"I had a lot of fun out there in the race to be honest. The Super Black Racing Ice Break Ford was really good. The strategy was bang on and we moved forward which was the aim. I'm a little bit disappointed that we didn't quite get it together in qualifying; I think we had more speed in it so we didn't qualify to our potential but I'm really happy with how the race went. I had a lot of fun passing cars and the consistency was really good and that's important here with such high tyre degradation so I'm looking forward to having another crack at it tomorrow. Hopefully we can qualify a little bit better and just maximise that consistency and hopefully finish with a top ten."
 
Tim Edwards – Team Principal: 
"Obviously it's great to see Chaz get another pole position. The first lap didn’t quite go how we would have liked but that's really the story of the race from there on out. He and Frosty really put on some good battles out there and stuck their elbows out but with the way the track is and how high the degradation is, how your race ends depends a lot on where you pit and that played a part in where all of the drivers finished today. We'll look at everything overnight. There are some positives to take from today so we'll work towards those and see what we can do."

RESULTS
RACE 18

1) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight 
2) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight
3) James Courtney - HRT
4) Chaz Mostert – Supercheap Auto Racing 
5) Scott McLaughlin
11) Mark Winterbottom – The Bottle-O Racing Team
14) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing
20) Cameron Waters – Monster Energy Racing

DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 
1) Jamie Whincup – Triple Eight: 1959
2) Shane van Gisbergen – Triple Eight: 1861
3) Mark Winterbottom – Prodrive Racing: 1773 
4) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight: 1773
5) Scott McLaughlin – Garry Rogers Motorsport: 1647
9) Chaz Mostert – Prodrive Racing: 1406
19) Cameron Waters – Prodrive Racing: 936
20) Chris Pither– Super Black Racing: 859

TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Triple Eight: 3830
2) Prodrive Racing: 2734
3) GRM: 2598

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