Frosty romps it at Reid Park

11 July 2015

Frosty wins race 16

Pepsi Max Crew’s Mark Winterbottom has nearly doubled his championship lead after a commanding performance led to another PRA 1-2 with stable-mate David Reynolds finishing a car-length behind after 70 laps of Townsville’s Reid Park circuit. 

Frosty led into the first turn and was never headed, even resisting a late attack from Reynolds. 

The win sees the team move to a 50 per cent win ratio for all 2015 races and results see Frosty, Dave and Chaz sit in the top five overall. 

Chaz looked set to finish on the podium only to drop back late in the race due to a technical issue. 

The pole man was quick throughout and was never more than a few seconds off the lead only for a rear-end problem to drop him back to eighth by race end. 

Earlier in the day Chaz continued his run of pole positions by leading a team 1-2-3 – the third such lockout of the season as he headed Frosty and Dave. 

Mark Winterbottom - #5 Pepsi Max PRA Ford: 
Qualifying: 2nd 
Race 16: 1st 
"It was awesome to qualify up the front and then to push on. We went pretty aggressive on the strategy and put the soft tyres on early. It made it tough at the end but it was good to hold on and have a 1-2. Chaz was third for a long time so we could’ve had the sweep. To share the results around the cars like we are is good. All the team is happy, the bosses are happy and so are the sponsors. We struggled here last year so to bounce back, we are pretty rapt with today.”

Chaz Mostert - #6 Pepsi Max PRA Ford:  
Qualifying: 1st   
Race 16: 8th  
"It was a pretty good day and a tough day too. We poled it and we were looking at a good result. We were following our sister cars throughout and doing similar things, but something happened with the car late in the race and that caused us to drop back quite a bit. We’re not sure what the issue is just yet but something happened in the rear-end. We’ll regroup overnight and try and finish off with a win tomorrow.”

Tim Edwards – Team Principal 
"Today was a near-perfect execution of our plan, with only a late technical issue for Chaz stopping us taking the elusive 1-2-3 podium sweep. Qualifying in the top three spots set everything up for us and allowed each of the car crews to run the strategy they wanted. Mark’s result came on a day where it allowed him to increase his points gap and it was great to have Dave up the front and menacing throughout. While we now focus on tomorrow, we’ll enjoy the moment ever so briefly tonight.”

TOWNSVILLE RESULTS – SATURDAY 
RACE 16
1) Mark Winterbottom – Pepsi Max Crew
2) David Reynolds – The Bottle-O Racing Team 
3) Fabian Coulthard – Brad Jones Racing
4) Scott McLaughlin – GRM 
5) Scott Pye – DJR Team Penske
8) Chaz Mostert – Pepsi Max Crew 

DRIVER CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 
1) Mark Winterbottom – Pepsi Max Crew: 1315 points 
2) Fabian Coulthard – Brad Jones Racing: 1139 
3) Craig Lowndes – Triple Eight: 1133
4) Chaz Mostert – Pepsi Max Crew: 1081
5) David Reynolds – The Bottle-O Racing Team: 1063

TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
1) Pepsi Max Crew: 2396 points
2) Triple Eight: 2136
3) HRT: 2043

- See more at: http://fpr.com.au/news/2015/07/11/frosty-romps-it-at-reid-park#sthash.Hg94jCbO.dpuf