FROSTY’S BATHURST BATTLE
Bernard Carpinter reports on the great race that is the Bathurst 1000 held at Mount Panorama in New South Wales.
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This year’s Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 was one of the best, with huge tension over the last 30odd laps.
Six cars were in contention in the closing stages, till Mark “Frosty” Winterbottom and Jamie Whincup broke away to fight for victory between themselves while the other four disputed the minor placings. It was the classic Ford vs Holden battle, with Ford Performance Racing’s Winterbottom just ahead of reigning champion Jamie Whincup in the Triple Eight Holden Commodore. It was a reverse of last year’s race, when Whincup was chased hard by Ford’s David Reynolds but just held on for victory, his fourth.
For lap after lap Winterbottom kept the Ford in front, sometimes leading by nearly a second, sometimes with Whincup right on his bumper. They were clearly right on the edge, the cars sliding and twitching in very difficult conditions – a gusting wind was strong enough to push the cars off line and it was blowing dust on to the track surface, making it slippery.
At the start of the last lap Winterbottom made a small mistake at turn one and lost a little momentum. Up the Mountain Straight – much steeper than it looks on TV – Whincup drew alongside and tried to make a brave pass on the outside into turn two. He slid wide, just avoiding a crash, and that allowed Winterbottom to get away for his first victory in Australia’s Great Race. Indeed, it was his first podium at Bathurst, although he has been a top driver for several years now. Winterbottom’s co-driver was expat Kiwi Steven Richards, who had won Bathurst twice earlier in his career, and he was also very fast during his stints.
“The final few laps were incredibly close and on the last lap I knew if I could hold the inside line at turn two I would be okay,” Winterbottom said. Then coming down Conrod Straight I knew we had won the race, I knew it was ours so that was a really sweet moment.
“I really can’t say enough about Steve and his effort today. He was happier in the car than me today and drove incredibly well. To win the Peter Brock Trophy with him and FPR after so many years of trying is the best thing ever.”
Whincup said it had been a good clean fight. “I had a good go but Mark drove really well,” he said. I am happy I
had a go; and happy we both played a straight bat. It was all fair deal.”
Whincup’s team-mate Craig Lowndes won the scrap for third after an aggressive overtaking attempt by Garth Tander (Holden Racing Team) caused him and Jason Bright (Brad Jones Racing Holden) to run wide, allowing Lowndes to pass both of them. Bright was irate about the incident: “Tander just had a lunge and took us with him off the track,” he said. Tander took fourth and Bright fifth. Paul Dumbrell drove with Whincup, Warren Luff with Lowndes, Nick Percat with Tander and Andrew Jones with Bright.
The race had started with Whincup’s co-driver Dumbrell on pole and Winterbottom alongside him on the front row. Winterbottom made a terrible start and lost several places, while Dumbrell streaked away to open a commanding lead. Later on Dumbrell lost time with a couple of off-track excursions, but still the FPR pair did very well indeed to recover from their early setback.
Kiwi hopes were high before the race with 11 New Zealand drivers racing but in the end Richards was the only one to taste real success. Shane Van Gisbergen started his Tekno Holden from fourth and ran second for a while, but a bad pit stop put him and Dutch co-driver Jeroen Bleekemolen out of contention and they finished 11th.
Scott McLaughlin had been hoping to do better than the sixth he achieved as a rookie last year, but had to settle for eighth in the Garry Rogers Holden shared with Jack Perkins. John McIntyre, co-driving with Alex Davison in another FPR car, came home 13th, one place ahead of Craig Baird and Lee Holdsworth in the first of the Erebus Mercedes.
Fabian Coulthard had a strong run early on in the other Brad Jones car, shared with Luke Youlden, but found the car mysteriously lost pace later on. “I don’t like saying it but may be there’s something wrong with the car,” Coulthard said. “It’s unusual to drop off in pace like it did today.”
Chris Pither came in 22nd in Dale Wood’s Holden, Jonny Reid was 24th in Tony D’Alberto’s Holden, one place ahead of Daniel Gaunt driving a factory Nissan Altima with Michael Caruso. The Nissan spent several laps in the pits. Matt Halliday failed to finish in Dean Fiore’s Holden.
Greg Murphy, co-driving with former champion James Courtney for the Holden Racing Team, was well positioned till he hit the wall hard. “I don’t know what happened, I either turned in too late or a bit too aggressively,” Murphy said. “It was weird.”
The only other major incident came when David Russell hit a kangaroo while driving Todd Kelly’s Nissan. “I went up through turn two and just up to when I was about to pull fourth gear I just caught it out of the corner of my eye, but Skippy jumped out and I had a split second to try and do something, but I wasn’t going to swerve and put the car in the wall to avoid it,” Russell said. The car was too badly damaged to continue.
Other endurance news
The first endurance round of the 2013 BNT V8 SuperTourers championship went to Shane Van Gisbergen and Australian co-driver Alex Davison, even though their Ford was not the fastest car at the Hampton Downs meeting. Van Gisbergen said there were several little things wrong with the car but the duo persevered and their two fourths and a fifth over the three legs earned them overall victory while other top teams had their ups and downs.
The three sections all had different winners – Greg Murphy-Jack Perkins (Holden) in the first, Tim Edgell-Lee Holdsworth (Holden) in the second and Ant Pedersen-Chaz Mostert (Ford) in the final. However each of these teams also suffered a non-finish because of a mechanical problem. Scott McLaughlin and Jonathon Webb were in contention for the round victory after finishing second in heat two in their Holden but Webb crashed early in the final.
Young Christchurch driver Richard Moore was rapt to finish second overall, sharing his Holden with Supercar racer Tim Slade, while Pedersen and Mostert were third. Murphy retained his lead in the championship, ahead of Van Gisbergen and Pedersen.
The strongly contested South Island Endurance Series saw more domination by the Porsche GT3s over the first two rounds. Simon Ellingham and John McIntyre won the first round at Teretonga and qualified on pole for round two at Ruapuna where they were joined by Jono Lester, who has been successfully racing GTs in Japan. However a collision in the race damaged the Porsche’s radiator and they lost a lot of time in the pits.
Victory at Ruapuna went to Daniel Gaunt and Paul Kelly, ahead of Rick Armstrong-Matthew Hamilton and Allan Dippie-Scott O’Donnell, all in GT3s. The Falcon V8 Supercar of Matt and Dwayne Carter led for a time but pitted with a breakage at the front of the car. The series concludes at the new Highlands circuit near Cromwell in November, as a support category for the final round of the Australian GT championship.
Kiwi Brendon Hartley is in line for a top drive at the world’s greatest endurance race, the Le Mans 24-hours, next year. Hartley has been fast in this year’s European Le Mans series, winning one round in a car run by the Murphy team. Porsche returns to the top category of endurance racing next year and has announced that Hartley is on its short list of drivers, possibly joining Australian Mark Webber who will be driving for Porsche after leaving Formula One at the end of this year.