Pressure is on Craig Lowndes, says Mark Winterbottom

Mark Winterbottom is the hunted one in the V8 Supercars season-end sprint, with Craig Lowndes having closed the gap to 258 points in the drivers’ championship. But the Prodrive Racing Australia driver says pressure is still on his Triple Eight Race Engineering rival.

“He [Lowndes] hasn’t won a championship since ‘99. Effectively in the modern era he’s won Bathurst but he hasn’t won the championship, so it’s pressure on him as well,” said Winterbottom to v8supercars.com.au.

The previous race weekend at the Gold Coast was Winterbottom’s worst so far this season, finishing 23rd in the first race after a drive through penalty for colliding with Garth Tander in the pits and eleventh in the second race.

“I thought I drove well at the Gold Coast, I didn’t give away points because of mistakes I made. The pit lane one was costly, but in terms of how I drove I don’t think I was driving bad, which is good for me personally – it’s a confidence boost,” said Winterbottom.

The V8 Supercars Championship heads to New Zealand this weekend at Pukekohe where Winterbottom won two of four races last year.

“I love this place and if I could pick a round I could come to, to try and give myself a confidence boost I’d pick this as my number one track in terms of how I feel at it. We’ll find out Friday if it’s still good to me or if it’s changed. There’s been a bit of resurfacing and stuff so it’s a bit different, but should be no different to the previous years hopefully,” said Winterbottom.