Mostert pleased with ‘redemption drive’

Chaz Mostert admitted his storming drive to salvage a stunning top five from the back of the grid in Darwin exceeded expectations.

After qualifying 22nd for the Darwin Triple Crown opening race, Mostert was staring down the barrel, but he made up 17 spots to finish fifth.

The Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang was on fire from the get-go, climbing five spots on the opening lap alone.

By the time it was time to pit, Mostert had muscled all the way to 11th, and armed with four fresh tyres, he continued his momentum in the second stint.

He picked off rival upon rival before finally reaching the top five with five to go.

He set his sights on fourth-placed James Golding but fell 0.5s short.

It was still a mighty drive, which is critical to Mostert’s championship hopes.

“We just shouldn’t be starting that far back,” he said after the race. “So yeah, we have a lot of work to do tonight to try and understand and make sure we don’t roll out the same car for qualifying tomorrow.

“But the race car was pretty good, and we were lucky that we had chosen the right strategy.

“It was hard to read this weekend. The Super Soft doesn’t give you too much feedback until you get in the race with cars, so that was hard. I felt like I had a better balance in the race and was able to use it. The car felt good in a race trim.

“I was surprised how much ground I made early on people and was able to race, and others were struggling a bit more balance than I was. So yeah, I was right there early. And then, in the end, there were some wounded cars, and I probably drove about a bit too hard out in the last stint, but I had to try and make up the time of the extra tyres and stuff.”

Last year Mostert did the same thing, forging his way into the top 10 from similar grid positions in two of the three races.

Before lights went out, the two-time Bathurst 1000 winner admitted it was a stretch to match those results, let alone beat them.

Mostert admitted he had to get aggressive to fly through the pack.

“It was a lot of fun, but not when you’re trying to do what you want to try and do this year and trying to push for the championship so. We will try and make sure we’re not down there tomorrow.

“I’m trying to have a big push this year, but we can’t have the days we had yesterday for qualifying. We need to try and get on top of the Super Soft tyres as quickly as we can this weekend, and hopefully, the Soft tyre still works for us and the hard works for us, too.

“We’ve been on this year, and this has been a bit tricky weekend.

“I’ll watch the race tonight and see what I can learn, but hopefully people were entertained. I probably raced some people pretty hard out there, I don’t think I made too many friends.

“You want respect from everyone, but when you have to clear people quickly you have to race hard. Hopefully they’re all OK with that.”

Darwin Triple Crown (ACST)

Friday, June 14

Practice 1: 1: W. Brown 1:06.4153 2: J. Golding +0.0156 3: J. Le Brocq +0.0518

Qualifying: 1: J. Golding 1:05.6912 2: N. Percat +0.0742 3: M. Winterbottom +0.1515

Saturday, June 15

Practice 2: 1: W. Brown 1:06.2120 2: B. Feeney +0.3002 3: C. Waters +0.4181

Top 10 Shootout: 1: J. Golding 1:06.2302 2: B. Feeney 1:06.3091 3: Mark Winterbottom 1:06.3621

Race 11: B. Feeney 2: M. Winterbottom +8.6763 3: W. Brown +10.6426

Sunday, June 16

10.25 Qualifying

11.35 Top 10 Shootout

15.10 Race 12 (48 laps)

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