It was an all Prodrive front row this afternoon, but this time Chaz Mostert got the jump on teammate Mark Winterbottom and didn’t falter to the chequered flag.
While Mostert has earned eight ARMOR ALL Pole Positions this season, he had only scored two wins until this afternoon’s 200km race at the Coates Hire Ipswich SuperSprint.
The young gun – along with Jamie Whincup who was on the second row – got a great start and after the two pit stops shook out had a convincing lead over Craig Lowndes in the final stint.
Lowndes, who is battling Winterbottom for the Championship, earned a handful of points on his Ford rival, but with ‘Frosty’ home third and stablemate David Reynolds fourth, Prodrive is continuing to flex its muscles on the race track.
Whincup gave way to Lowndes on lap five and suffered from two difficult pit stops, with fuel spraying in the first, a jammed front right in the second; and ran off track in the later stages after a closely fought battle with good mate Will Davison.
The closing laps saw a bizarre in-car outburst from Todd Kelly after his Nissan stopped with two laps left to run, and Davison had a good go at James Courtney for sixth – but it was Mostert who flew out the front, ultimately winning by 5.61sec lead over Lowndes.
“The boys changed the clutch overnight so it felt pretty good off the start line – I finally got off the line,” Mostert said post-race.
Winterbottom said it was great to see his teammate take it out.
“It was a good day, to see Chaz win is awesome as well – the team still got the win which was nice. My thing wasn’t good from the middle stint onwards,” he said.
Lowndes believes he couldn’t challenge for P1 and thanked his team for the smart thinking on strategy.
“That’s the best we could’ve done this weekend. Credit to Prodrive, Chaz and Frosty – they are still the cars to beat. I think our strategy got us where we were,” he said.
The Holden Racing Team Commodores of Garth Tander and Courtney came home in fifth sixth, with Davison and Whincup behind.
It was another tough day for Shane van Gisbergen, who qualified down the back and finished the race in 21st position.
The V8 Supercars next hit the track at Sydney Motorsport Park from August 21-23.
Mostert and Lowndes are two of five drivers who will go to Malaysia this week for a V8 Supercars showcase at the KL City Grand Prix.
