Fosty and Richo have made a promising start to the Clipsal 500 this weekend with both drivers emerging content with their pre-qualifying performance.

“I was pretty happy with the actual set-up on the Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon. Other drivers put new tyres on at the end, which makes you look a worse than what your time really is,” said Mark Winterbottom.

“My best lap time was set on my final flying lap on 30 lap old tyres, we made some good progress with the set-up of the car and it feels like it is going to be very strong over the longer runs.

“I’m really looking forward to the race, this car is certainly the easiest car that I’ve driven around here, it is very stable and I’m very confident for the weekend ahead,” he added.

Steve Richards was equally upbeat. 

“Everything went to plan throughout today’s session, we had a schedule of changes that we wanted to make and worked to that schedule,” Richo said.

“All of the changes to the set-up that we made were positive and overall I’m pretty pleased with the outcome of the day.

“We our second set of new tyres on late in the session, we wanted to make sure that the car will be well balanced for when we put new tyres on for qualifying.”

The action on track tomorrow will consist of qualifying at 10:30am followed by the top ten shootout at 11:30am and race one at 2:35pm. Sunday will be highlighted by a 20-minute qualifying session and the final 78-lap encounter.