Congratulations to Mark Winterbottom
Posted Mar 03, 2010
Congratulations to Body Science International ambassador Mark Winterbottom, who successfully secured second place at the recent V8 Supercar Championship meet in Bahrain.
Read his full race report here, courtesy of Marinelli Motorsport PR:
DOUBLE PODIUM BAHRAIN VISIT
A quick flight across from Abu Dhabi to the island of Bahrain saw me back in the saddle for the second event of the series. After an enjoyable and competitive opening round, I was excited about my prospects in Bahrain as I won this event back in 2007. It has always been special to me because it represented a major step in my racing career. Once we arrived in sunny and warm Bahrain it was off to the circuit for a track walk which was interesting as this year we used the longer 5.4km Formula One circuit layout. So while I had been there before and had a good idea of what to expect, the new layout changed things a bit for all of us and added to the challenge we faced to set up a very fast race car.
Practice got underway on Thursday and my team mate Richo and his engineer took a certain direction in set-up, while Campbell and I tried something fairly radical to develop our race set-up. Richo's direction was the right one - he found his way into the top ten at 9th and I was way down in 16th. We had tried a softer set-up to deal with this slippery and abrasive circuit surface and switched to what Richo was running but I ran out of time and tyres to try and set a faster lap by the end of practice. These are the challenges you face with a new car in the opening races of any season - finding the right balance can be very difficult initially. We decided to persist with our softer set-up for qualifying, knowing that we could quickly change it back to Richo's set up as a back up plan. Both my engineer Campbell Little and I thought this would be right way to go - and it paid off, making it back into the top ten at 8th, some 6/10ths of a second behind the fastest lap set by Jamie Whincup. This result placed us in reach of a front row start in the top ten shoot-out, with some futher engineering changes made and track conditions improving, I set the fastest lap time of anyone over the weekend to that point (2:04.82), but this lap time was fractionally beaten by Ford driver Shane Van Gisbergen and Holden's Whincup - who gained his second pole of the new season. While I wanted the pole position badly, this was the 32nd top three qualifying result of my career, so I was still pleased with our performance.
FLYING THE FORD FLAG AGAINST WHINCUP IN BOTH RACES
The first Bahrain 37 lapper was one of consistency in taking the fight to Whincup. The team did an outstanding job in the pits and we had good speed, we were the only team that offered any serious challenge to Whincup during the race. Finishing 3.4 seconds behind him in second place definitely shows that while we are still learning our way around the new car, we have good pace and reliability. The third placed driver, Craig Lowndes, finished more than 11 seconds behind me. The plan remained to keep chipping away at it and our winning day will come - we are too close to not be expecting this. It was a good race, I enjoyed using the F1 circuit layout as well, you can carry some good speed between the corners in the new section and get a good run on your competitor on the exits. I did this several times during the race.
Qualifying on Saturday morning saw us all on the track for a furious 20 minutes fighting for the best grid positions. The entire weekend saw changing levels of grip due to the track temperature, sand on the surface and rubber laid down by our cars. It was much cooler and windier than the past days which made it difficult to determine what the track conditions would be like. In fact, the wind caused havoc. making the grip levels average at best. I could only really get one fast lap from my remaining set of new Dunlops, so it was like a shoot-out due to the conditions. I didn't get the perfect lap and ended up second to Whincup, fractionally missing out on the pole. It was the 26th front row start of my career and ensured that I would be taking the Ford fight to Whincup in the second and final Bahrain race.
The final 37 lap race in the Middle East proved that Whincup is human like the rest of us as I was able to pressure him into a number of uncharacteristic errors like running off the circuit and stalling in the pits. It showed that if you take the fight to him or anyone else and if you battle hard enough, cracks begin to appear. Having said this, he drove very well and despite me getting the jump on him at the start and leading the early stages of the race, his pace was very strong. We both finished the race some 17 seconds clear of third placed blue oval driver Shane Van Gisbergen, clearly showing that FPR was the only team who could take the challenge to the Triple 8 Holdens in these opening four races of the season. We have bagged 543 points after the first races of the season which is an outstanding result and we achieved what we came here to do. Over these four races in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain my engineer Campbell Little has brought the best out of me and my car. It is the best start to a season in FPR's history and the team worked brilliantly both here and back home. We will have some new components to further improve our performance at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide and beyond so we can continue this momentum. Ford fans should be very excited, we have the fight in us and we won't be backing down. Bring it on!
For More Information Visit http://www.markwinterbottom.com
