Winterbottom: Second sweeter than win
Although Mark Winterbottom could not quite repeat his 2023 heroics, he is more thrilled with Team 18’s 2024 pace in Darwin.
The #18 Camaro of Winterbottom has been up the front of the field all weekend and backed up qualifying third with a strong second place.
It was “Frosty”s second runner-up result of the 2024 after also achieving the feat.
He still secured the strong result despite an issue which resulted in having the “full throttle sticking under brakes.”
Last year Winterbottom also started third as well and was the beneficiary of Cameron Waters’ fire to take a famous win.
However, the veteran is actually more delighted by being the runner-up in the same race 12 months on because he believes the team is in a much stronger position with the Gen3 Camaro.
“Last year when we won it felt like luck and a flash in the pan but now I feel like it is more about structure and greater understanding,” he told AUTO ACTION.
“I feel way better now than last year because we are collecting data and understanding it.
“Sometimes second does feel like some of the wins.
“This feels like a great result, to beat one of the fastest cars in Triple Eight.”
After tough rounds in Taupo and Wanneroo where Winterbottom’s best result was 11th, Team 18 has responded well at Hidden Valley with David Reynolds also near the front finishing sixth.
Team 18 had an engineering reset ahead of 2024 and Winterbottom feels they are making strides.
“We are still learning and trying things,” he said.
“Our engineering team had a massive shuffle and started from scratch.
“This sport is about momentum and you can get buried.
“When you are having a bad run you do weird things to dig yourself out and throw the kitchen sink.
“But when you are going well you just tinker away and this weekend our changes have been so minor.
“This was our first weekend of David and I running the similar setups in qualifying and it is correlating.
“We are not fixed so we will see how we go at Townsville but once you start doing a few good rounds then you can think ‘we are on here’.
“Now we can work together really well and truck on. When we execute we are good enough.”
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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Podcast: SVG goes back to back
Shane van Gisbergen has gone back-to-back with a win in Sonoma, while his antipodean mates – Will Brown and Cam Waters – had mixed debuts in the NASCAR Cup Series… but both showed enough to stay on the radar or the US teams looking for the next Giz?
Plus, we’ve got all the latest news on Supercars, F1, IndyCar, and whatever else came to our minds at the time. We also look at the Darwin Supercars and the hypercars at Le Mans for the 24-hour race.
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