FORMER V8 Supercar champion Mark Winterbottom believes an upcoming test day at Winton holds the key to him getting his season back on track.
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The 2015 V8 Supercars champion was in Wagga on Wednesday with rising star Cam Waters as part of a Castrol roadshow.
The man they call ‘Frosty’ slipped to seventh on the V8 Supercars standings after a bad weekend in Winton just gone and Winterbottom is desperate to improve.
“I’m not happy,” Winterbottom said.
“It’s been frustrating. We started pretty bad with a few dramas, then started to hit some form but then Winton on the weekend, about fifth or sixth was about our pace.
“We’re not just quick enough. You’re coming off 2015 where you win, and 2016 we were still competitive. It just feels like other teams have jumped us a little bit.”
Winterbottom hopes the upcoming test day at Winton will allow his team to get back to a more competitive position.
“We’ve got a test day coming up in two weeks time that’s really important for us. We haven’t really had a good test day yet so we need to come out of that with a heap of knowledge,” he explained.
“You build and build and build and then you win it. You don’t want to drop down.
“You just want to be competitive. Even if you don’t win the Championship, you want to win races or challenge for poles, just be up there. Winton we qualified eighth and ninth, it’s average.”
Winterbottom declared the bad start to 2017 has his more determined than ever to succeed.
“That’s a part of the challenge, motivation’s massive,” he said.
“You don’t want to be there so you want to work hard to get back.
“The test day’s crucial for us, at Winton. It’s good that we pretty much just finished there with a whole list of this was bad, that was bad, so in two weeks time we go back, address these areas and until you fix it, we ain’t leaving.”
Winterbottom believes the test day could not have come at a better time.
“It’s actually good to go back, similar conditions, start with the same car so you’ve got the same dramas and tune from there,” he said.
“That will springboard for sure. It’s easy to say, you know what you’ve got to achieve but you’ve got a day with four cars to achieve it. You normally do but it’s not guaranteed. Other cars test as well...but we need the test day more than others so we’ll see how it goes.”
While Winterbottom came off a frustrating weekend at Winton, it was the opposite for fellow Ford driver, Waters.
He narrowly missed a podium finish in what the 22-year-old describes as a ‘dream job’.
“I’ve had a pretty good year so far, I’m 10th in the championship at the moment,” Waters said.
“I had a really good Winton on the weekend, I finished fourth on Sunday and so close to that first podium as a solo driver so I’m slowly getting there. It’s been a good year compared to last year and I’m just building on it every weekend.”
Winterbottom first visited Wagga back in the late 90s when racing go karts as a kid.
He thoroughly enjoyed the visit this week.
“It’s been good. It’s been busy,” he said.
“We flew in (Tuesday) night, went to the Vic Hotel, had a parma and a pot for 12 bucks so we started off pretty well then today’s been flat out.
“It’s been really good. Lots of people from here come to watch Winton on the weekend so it’s cool that you can bring your sport to people that effectively travel hours to come and watch.”
