COTA an American Beauty

Frosty happy with race pace in practice

Ford Pepsi Max Crews Will Davison has given the Circuit of the Americas layout a big tick of approval after setting the second-best time on V8 Supercars first day of running in the United States.

He was very happy with his performance in practice, going as far as suggesting his used tyre performance was as close to perfect as he would like.

However, Will was less happy with his green tyre effort despite his quick time and believes adjustments overnight will improve his one-lap performance.

Despite finishing 19th Mark could not be happier.

He was one of many drivers to run only one set of tyres all day but felt the development work he undertook on race set-up and the tyres he saved will pay dividends for the remainder of the weekend.

Mark Winterbottom - #5 Pepsi Max FPR Ford:
Ended the day: 19th 
It is an awesome track and Turn 1 is going to become an iconic corner in our championship. Overall, the layout is really enjoyable and while it was greasy and lacking grip early, by the end of the day the car really hooked up and you could attack corners. I am really happy with the car as we made massive progress and the race package will be very strong. We didnt use fresh tyres so hopefully that will help us tomorrow and beyond. It was a good day and Im happy with what we did.

Will Davison - #6 Pepsi Max FPR Ford:
Ended the day: 2nd 
It is a really cool circuit and combines being technical and quite tricky with also a lot of fun aspects so it was fun to drive. Out of all the modern day Formula 1-type circuits weve raced on it would be the best weve raced on. I was a little concerned after the opening two sessions but we made some really good changes and by the end on used tyres the car was absolutely awesome. I think we are in really good shape in that respect though we made some changes which didnt work for our new tyre run. That first run always involves a bit of guess work and we didnt get it quite right. We know how to fix it so we are looking alright overall.

Tim Edwards FPR Team Principal: 
It was great to finally be on track in Austin as weve had such a long build-up to the event and all the teams have been eagerly anticipating it. I think we found things as tricky as we thought theyd be but the layout should offer a lot up for drivers and fans. Encouragingly we had great pace on worn tyres and given the heat and the nature of the surface that will hopefully pay dividends as the weekend progresses.