Pukekhoe NZ

Driver thoughts

DRIVERS’ VIEW
#5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
“Pukekohe’s one of my favourite tracks of the season. It’s a fast track and should be even faster this year assuming the portions that have been resurfaced are as smooth as we expect them to be. The track has some good passing opportunities and will really work the tyres, but it should be a fun weekend. We finally had a good, clean race on Sunday in Gold Coast, so hopefully we can continue that this weekend. I’ve had some good runs there in the past, so I’m looking forward to running up front.” #5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
Practice 1: 12th, 1m03.40s
Practice 2: 3rd, 1m02.70s
“The car was good (at the end). We have really good race pace and unfortunately we got a bit of traffic those last two laps. It’s just been a run of the year, we don’t really get a clean run. The car was good, but we still didn’t maximise it at the end, but we had a good day, which is nice. It’s sort of taken ten months to get my car to sort of where I feel comfortable, and I think now we can start to get some good results.” 

#5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
Started: 3rd
Finished: 2nd
“It’s a good result. I think the car was pretty good. Just sitting behind (other cars), it was hard with aero wash. I think if we had gotten in front we would have been quite good. It’s really good to be back on the podium, you always back yourself and you knew if the car was right for you you’d be back up here. It’s a nice little reward. The guys have been working really hard, I’ve been in there, probably annoying them more than ever, so it’s just nice to get a result, know that you can still drive and know you can do the job. Good day, good battle. I was almost close enough to have a dive (on van Gisbergen), but just not close enough. We’ll tune up a little bit and see where we go tomorrow. But it’s great to spray champagne again, it’s been a long time.” 

#5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
Started: 4th  
Finished: 19th 
“There’s not much to say. Frankly our race was ruined by one of our own, so that’s quite disappointing. Cam thought the move was on, but this is the end result and it’s tough to deal with. The car was quick, the team prepared it well, so it goes down as a wasted opportunity. Not the way anyone wanted to end the weekend.”