Disappointed Mark Winterbottom: ”We’ve halted”

Mark Winterbottom lost 141 points to main title rival Craig Lowndes after the Gold Coast 600 weekend and the Ford driver is disappointed.
”We need to bounce back. The other team has got momentum and we’ve halted,” said Winterbottom.

The Prodrive Racing Australia driver lost out in the first race after colliding with Garth Tander during a pitstop, sending him to the back of the field after a drive through penalty and costly repairs.

”I’m disappointed with the weekend no doubt. Today was hard because we missed out on yesterday’s race and didn’t really have data leading into today which means we’ve effectively ended up a day behind. It was an average weekend – I can’t really sugar coat it,” said Winterbottom.

The second race saw Winterbottom qualifying in the top five, but dropping down the order in the race to finish 11th with co-driver Steve Owen.

”We didn’t make mistakes on track and I’m proud of the way Steve and I had a run but there’s other areas that we need to tidy up. We’ll go home and we’ll work hard. We need to get on top of it now for the championship. I’ve got to thank Steve as well for his contribution in the championship for the three rounds. He did an amazing job. He’s with us again next year so it’s great we’ve got him signed up. It was a bad way to end what was a good campaign,” said Winterbottom.