It’s hard to Ford gap: Whincup

HARD work is the only way Holden ace Jamie Whincup believes Holden can close the gap on dominant Supercars rivals DJR Team Penske.

The Ford team surged to a sixth one-two finish of the season at Winton Motor Raceway yesterday, with Scott McLaughlin claiming his 10th win of the season ahead of teammate Fabian Coulthard.

Whincup came in third behind the DJR pair but was barely able to land a blow, with only a late safety car preventing the winning margin being in excess of 10 seconds.

Ford have now won 13 of the 14 races this year, with DJR Team Penske claiming 12 of those victories.

Seven-time driver’s champion Whincup says there’s no easy solution to the issue.

“We’re happy with our progress. We were deadset very, very ordinary at Phillip Island and that’s only two rounds ago,” the Red Bull Holden Racing Team star said.

“We’ve made huge steps since there but there’s so many components that make up a race car. It’s not just one thing, there’s no silver bullet. We’re not going to redesign a new shock absorber and, boom, there you go.

“It’s going to be lots of little things but we’ve got a great team, got good people, it’s just a matter of chipping away.”

Whincup’s second podium in as many events means he’s now clawed his way up to fifth on the championship standings, but is now 478 points behind 2018 champion McLaughlin.

Despite that margin, Whincup isn’t yet putting all his eggs into the Bathurst basket for a successful year.

The 36-year-old pairs up with defending Bathurst champion Craig Lowndes at the 1000km endurance race but says it’s too early to be focusing on that part of the season.

“At the end of the day it’s up to us to really fight hard and try to bridge the gap and make a competition of it,” he said.

“We don’t want to slow those guys, we want to step up. Looking forward to that challenge.”