ParcFerme.Com

Ford Performance Racing (FPR) is heading to Mark ‘Frosty’ Winterbottom’s home race at Eastern Creek this weekend for round two of what promises to be one of the most exciting V8 Supercar Championships of all time.

Racing at last month’s Clipsal 500 was bumper-to-bumper, with at least ten drivers in the hunt for an early lead in the points. FPR came away satisfied with a decent result, both Ford Falcons finishing in the top five in race one and putting in competitive performances in race two before some bad luck saw Frosty’s race prematurely ended.

Consequently, the off-track build-up to Sydney’s Eastern Creek action has been hard-line and now Frosty and team-mate Steven Richards are itching to get back behind the wheel and continue the strongest start FPR has ever made, confident in the knowledge that the Prodrive-run team’s best circuits are still to come.

#5 Mark Winterbottom

Orrcon Ford Credit FPR Falcon

“This is my home town so I always love going back to see my old school friends and family and I’ve had good success there; in 2003 I won the development series reverse grid race from grid 30.

"There's been a lot of off-track build up but that won’t affect the racing; we’ll just get over it and soldier on. It’s a really high-speed circuit so the racing should be good. Turn One, in particular, is a 220kph left-hander; a real high-speed thrill corner!

“I would say, after Adelaide, there’s going to be quite a lot of action on track at Eastern Creek. After my DNF, I want to redeem myself and get a better result so I'll be racing as normal; in fact probably a bit harder than normal! There’s plenty of run-off at Eastern Creek after all!” 

#6 Steven Richards

Castrol FPR Falcon

“If you don’t get the tyres working well you struggle at the Creek because the surface isn’t high grip so tyres deteriorate reasonably dramatically. You might have the leaders doing a 1:34s lap and the guy in fifth doing mid-1:36s because there’s a big difference between the haves and the have-nots. We should be up in the top five though, going for the win.

“In terms of our tyre wear, we’re only allowed to test at Winton and around there it isn’t an issue but every circuit is different. The car is better than it was last year though so expectations for qualifying are in the top five; that would be reasonable. I’m definitely in the best position I’ve ever been in to get my first win here!”

FPR Team Principal, Tim Edwards

“The cars have been fully rebuilt after the last race. Frosty’s car had a major rebuild at the front end but it’s as good as new now; absolutely 100% square.

“We said we wanted to start the season strong; we certainly did that at Adelaide and we fully expect to carry that into Eastern Creek. At this point of the season, we’ve got to go out for maximum points. Aside from Jamie Whincup, none of the championship contenders got a big hall of points at Clipsal so it’s too early to be thinking about the result affecting our championship position. We’ll just go all-out and go hard at every race; there’s no backing off!”

2008 V8 Supercars Championship

Series Points Report

1    Jamie Whincup                    300

2    Lee Holdsworth                    258

3    Rick Kelly                            192

4    Steven Johnson                    186

5    Todd Kelly                           180

6    Shane Van Gisbergen           180

7    Greg Murphy                        174

8    Steven Richards                 171

9    Jason Richards                    156

10   Mark Skaife                        138

11   Mark Winterbottom           138