Bathurst 1000 Driver Views

15 October 2018

Frosty provides an insight in to 12th place

Mark Winterbottom and Dean Canto (No. 5 The Bottle-O Ford Falcon FG X) make their third start together in the Bathurst 1000, with Frosty making his 16thstart and Canto his 20th in Australia’s premier event. 

DRIVERS’ VIEW

No. 5 The Bottle-O Ford Falcon FG X
Mark Winterbottom
“Anyone’s got a chance (at Bathurst). There’s no substitute for experience at that place, and I’ve had a lot of years there. I’ve had highs and lows, I know what it takes to win, I know what it takes to fail, so hopefully we get it right, get a good result, and get on that top step.” 

Practice 1: 2m25.74s, 5th
Practice 2 (co-drivers): 2m36.63s, 4th
Practice 3: 2m31.14s, 12th 
Mark Winterbottom
“I felt pretty comfortable all day to be honest. We had a go in the first session, we were top three pretty much all of that session, then when it dried up we missed our window a bit, but it was good overall. Dean did quite a few laps today, which was nice as well, he felt really comfortable which was great. We got our engine mapping where we need it, and that last session we went out with one more engine mapping change to see what it would do. We didn’t really do a lap in that session and still ended up 12th. It was a pretty good day, the car’s straight, and we’re both feeling comfortable. It was a good day, but it’s supposed to be dry tomorrow so it might all be irrelevant, but we survived the first day which is good.” The day for Mark Winterbottom and Dean Canto (No. 5 The Bottle-O Ford Falcon FG X) was a struggle, as the latter found the tyre barrier at Forrest’s Elbow in Practice 4, and Winterbottom had a wild moment in qualifying when his throttle stuck at The Chase. The 37-year old fired through the grass, and while avoiding contact with the barrier, was unable to crack the ten, and will start Sunday’s race from 19th. 

Practice 4 (co-drivers): 2m07.08s, 2nd
Practice 5: 2m32.45s, 15th
Race 25 Quali: 2m05.51s, 19th
Mark Winterbottom
“My first outing went pretty good, but I went out in the second one, was on for about P6, and the car stayed locked on 100% throttle at The Chase so I speared off the track. You know, 300-kay an hour with 100% throttle when you’re trying to brake isn’t ideal. We fixed it, but when I got back on track, the power steering was really heavy, and I had a vibration, and it was oversteering more than before. We had done damage, but luckily I survived and my last lap I had traffic. I think I could have done a (two minute) 4-9, 5-0, but you’re running wounded after going off at The Chase, it’s frustrating, but I’m lucky not to have hit the fence. The crew did a good job to fix the damage from this morning, but sometimes when you crash there are follow on effects, and I think we saw it today. But the car’s straight, and we’ll go again.” 

Practice 6: 2m06.20s, 15th
Top Ten Shootout: n/a
Race 25 Start: 19th
Mark Winterbottom
“We’re still not happy with the balance, to be honest, we need to make it a good race car. We found a few dramas with the car last night, but we still need to keep chipping away at it and make it better for tomorrow. It’s a long day tomorrow, we can win from any position, but we need to make sure that we’ve got the balance of the car right.  Hopefully we’ll do what we need and have a good day tomorrow. Anything can happen. We’re not worried about the starting position, we’re just worried about the car balance, and that’s the focus overnight.” 

Race 25 Start: 19th
Race 25 Finish: 12th
Mark Winterbottom
“We’re just not quick enough at the moment. We struggled all weekend with straight line speed on my car, it just wasn’t doing what we wanted it to do. Tough day, we got up into a reasonable position at one point, but we were done when we had to stack behind Chaz. We’ve still got work to do, but at least we survived today, we hadn’t finished the last two Bathursts so 12th’s better than a DNF, but you don’t come here just to finish, you come here to win, so it’s tough not feeling like we could do that today.”