Mostert turns the heat up on Frosty
CHAZ Mostert was talking more like a championship challenger than a tail gunner for his teammate yesterday after the Ford young-gun blasted away the V8 heavyweights to score an emphatic practice win in Townsville.
While all the talk has been about the championship fight between his teammate Mark Winterbottom and the record breaking Red Bull drivers, this kid – the one with the last to first Bathurst 1000 win to his name – has been quietly going about piling on the points.
Mostert, 23, went quiet when asked about his championship ambition, and who could blame him?
But he is doing his talking on the track. He is this year’s qualifying king with five onelap wins and has six podiums to go with his two wins.
“I think everyone says that it is not even worth talking about until after the enduros,’’ Mostert said after proving the quickest on the opening day of the Townsville 400 ahead of Nick Percat (Holden) and Will Davison (Mercedes) and Winterbottom in fourth.
“Where you come out of the endurance, really determines the position you are going for. At the moment I don’t even like thinking about the big goal. Every time I think about it, I go spinning off the track. I tend to have a bad weekend whenever it is mentioned.
“At the moment our car has been the best it has been and Frosty has the best chance he has had at the title.
“If we are up there with him then we will push.’’
Despite talking down his chances, almost being dismissive of his ability to beat his teammate, Mostert sounded well and truly like a driver focused on the championship when talking about his goals for the weekend.
Rather than going all out for race wins – what those without a chance tend to do – he was all about “bagging points’’ and “avoiding trouble’’.
“We want to keep a straight car here this weekend and make sure I finish both the races. I am just after bagging a lot of points and you do that any time you finish in the topfive so that is my goal here.’’
It was a disappointing start for Red Bull with Craig Lowndes finishing in 10th and Whincup in 14th, while Garth Tander – the reigning Townsville champion – started slowly, ending practice in 21st place.