How Winterbottom approaches final round
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 14 November 2024
Ahead of his 287th and final round as a full-time driver, Mark “Frosty” Winterbottom is in “two minds”.
Winterbottom will conclude a successful full-time career that started at Adelaide with Larkham Motorsport in 2004 and will conclude at the same venue with Team 18 20 years later.
In that time Winterbottom has cemented himself into the history books with 39 wins, while earlier this year he became the first to notch 600 straight Supercars starts.
The highlights were the 2013 Bathurst 1000 and 2015 championship wins.
As he prepares for one last dash as the main driver, Winterbottom admits he is full of emotion.
“I’m in two minds. One yeah, emotional and enjoy the weekend, but two, want to go out on a high and try and win the race,” he said.
“You’re in that mixed thing between emotions. One thing I’ve done really well over my career is control my emotions really well.
“So trying to do that, but it’s definitely the hardest one, but we’ll roll out tomorrow and hopefully, have a good weekend, that’s what I’m aiming for, to finish on a high and if I can finish with a trophy then that would be perfect.
“I’m emotional but focused at the same time, which is quite hard to do.”
Despite standing on the podium four times, Adelaide is one of the few tracks Winterbottom has not won at and he is desperate to change that stat.
“This is the best event. You come here and it used to start the season and be the one I look forward to and now it’s the end of the season,” he said.
“It’s the one I look forward to. It’s one race I’ve finished second multiple times. I’ve never won this one. I’ve won almost every other track except for Adelaide.
“Something about this place has haunted me. I’ve led races and had engine failures and I led a race another time and broke a front roll bar, so I’ve been close and it’s one that I’ve really wanted to win.
“I got one more crack, so I’ll have a go this weekend and I’ll enjoy the event for whatever sort of comes of it result wise.
“But it is one that I haven’t won, and when you do finish, you want to tick off all your bucket list items and this is one of them. So I’ll have a good crack.”
Mark Winterbottom with Charlie Schwerkolt at Adelaide.
Team 18 has saluted Winterbottom with a special farewell livery.
“Frosty’s been an incredible asset for Team 18 for the past six years,” Team 18 boss Charlie Schwerkolt said.
“We’ve had an incredible time for him and there’s no better way of parting out in this great looking car here.
“It looks really good, especially let’s call them paw prints, all the number ones all over the car from his race wins, The 120 podiums and stats all up the back of the car. It looks absolutely fantastic and really proud to showcase this car.
“Now all we need to do is go and win the race. And we really hope he can we can send him off with a bang and get a one, two or something for the team, but I really hope he’s up there.
“It’s really exciting and really proud to have Mark in our team for the past six years.”
“It’s a nice tribute, Mitch Croke our sticker guy has done an amazing job with the stickers on the car and all those little dots reflect race wins,” Winterbottom said of the car.
“So there’s enough on there to make me feel like I’ve won enough, which is nice.
“To see the car is really cool and that’ll be the last one I’ll drive as a full timer. It’ll be a memory in my mind for many years to come.”
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