Milestone man Frosty's next target after fast start
Top five practice pace in Perth has Mark Winterbottom buoyed ahead of his 600th start, but competitive race pace looms as the next challenge.
Team 18 driver Winterbottom ended up fifth in Friday’s 90-minute practice session at the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint.
Winterbottom arrives on Saturday a factor at the front in what is a milestone day for the 2015 series champion.
The DEWALT Chevrolet veteran becomes just the third driver to start 600 races, behind Craig Lowndes and Garth Tander.
Winterbottom suggested there was more speed in his Camaro, having locked a tyre on his final lap.
However, while pleased with his one-lap pace, Winterbottom was determined to make it count in the race.
“Not a bad day. I think we definitely improved the car from the start to the end,” he said.
"I'm still looking for a little bit of balance in the car, but we're fifth, so it was good to have top five pace, and our last lap I locked a tyre in the last corner when I was up on a good lap.
“It’s not easy to drive, but relatively fast, so we just got to try and make it more predictable.
"If we can do that and qualify well tomorrow, then it puts us in a good position to race, but race pace is the next challenge.
"We need to make the tyres last a bit longer, so that’s work for us to do.”
Winterbottom is searching for his first podium since 2018, and first win since 2016, and has stated he is more comfortable in his Gen3 car.
Friday’s long session allowed teams to tune their cars across a long period, with Winterbottom and his #18 crew a beneficiary.
Winterbottom was in favour of the new format, but knows everything is reset come green light in ARMOR ALL Qualifying.
“I thought the long session was all right. It was just a different way to attack it, but I didn't mind it,” he said.
“It felt like a really good practice session, but I'll probably want two, one and a half hours now being greedy because the cars are really fun to drive, so I enjoyed being in it.
“It was a big session, but we now we go to bed and roll out tomorrow, drive to the track at 60km/h and then attack it at 300km/h in anger on lap one in quali.”
Winterbottom is 12th overall, 247 points behind series leader Brodie Kostecki, heading into Saturday’s race.
Cars will return to CARCO.com.au on Saturday for knockout ARMOR ALL Qualifying at 11:10am local time/1:10pm AEST.
Tickets for this weekend’s Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint are on sale on Supercars.com and Ticketek.com.
