Newcastle

29 November 2017

Frosty's thoughts

While the conclusion of the 2017 Supercars season finished in thrilling fashion, Prodrive Racing (Australia)’s inaugural run at the Newcastle 500 was one to forget as a problematic Sunday compounded a frustrating Saturday to end the 14-round campaign on a sour note.
The Bottle-O racer Mark Winterbottom (#5 FG X) led the way for PRA with a seventh place finish in the season finale. Winterbottom scored the provisional pole in group qualifying Sunday morning, and later qualified fourth in the Top Ten Shootout before pit strategy worked against the veteran in the 95-lap race.

DRIVERS’ VIEW

#5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
“The track’s brand new, we’ve never seen cars go on it before, so it’s the unknown, but we’re looking forward to that. From what I’ve seen the circuit looks spectacular, and I can’t wait to run it at speed. The last street race we had was Sunday at Gold Coast and it was the first race in a while where things went to plan, and we grabbed a top five, so we’ll look to do more of the same this weekend.” 

#5 The Bottle-O PRA Ford
Mark Winterbottom
Qualifying: 1st, 1m10.20s
Top Ten Shootout: 4th, 1m11.0
Race 26: 7th
“We had good pace, it’s just that the strategy didn’t play out for us the way it should have. We had cars coming out of pit lane and holding us up, and they cost you seconds and seconds. We had a car for probably third, but the strategy didn’t fall our way. Once we were back there it was just nose to tail to the end. We got P6 in the points, so it was good to move forward. Pretty good day overall, provisional pole, fourth in the shootout, so it’s a nice way to go into Christmas and starting towards next year.”