Ford Performance Racing (FPR) trio Will Davison, Mark Winterbottom and Paul Dumbrell have endured a day of mixed fortunes during practice for the Ipswich 300, though a strong late run by Dumbrell shows the team is headed in the right direction.
The day started with Dean Canto and Luke Youlden behind the wheel of both the #55 The Bottle-O FPR Falcon and the #6 Trading Post Racing FPR Falcon respectively.
The factory Ford endurance drivers gained valuable additional kilometres before handing the cars over to Dumbrell and Davison for the final two sessions.
Winterbottom joined his team-mates on track in the #5 Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon as the team set about finding a workable race set-up for tomorrow’s two 22-lap races which will be run on Dunlop’s soft compound tyre.
Each tried a range of different set-ups across the two 30-minute sessions, with Davison especially keen to try some options on the debut of his new chassis.
Dumbrell found a workable set-up and went fourth-fastest late in the final session, though a brief rain shower hit the circuit just as Davison and Winterbottom took to the track for their final run.
The team believes it is heading in the right direction despite two of its drivers missing the opportunity to show their true pace.
DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom – #5 Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon
Practice 3: 15th – 1m10.91s
Practice 4: 25th – 1m10.95s
“I spent the day trying to get the car to look after its rear tyres. It has really good drive now and we’ve made an improvement, though the rain at the end meant I didn’t get to set a lap time so we don’t actually know our true pace, though if you look at Paul’s (Dumbrell) time we are heading in the right direction. We just have to compare the data from all three cars and see what we need to do to get our race pace right. We probably put together some of the longest runs of the day and while 22 laps tomorrow might not sound like much, doing it on one set of tyres will hurt so we are really focussing on our tyre life.”
Will Davison – #6 Trading Post FPR Falcon
P1: 17th – 1m11.75s (Luke Youlden)
P2: 19th – 1m12.16s (Luke Youlden)
P3: 21st – 1m11.02s
P4: 23rd – 1m10.81s
“We had some new set-ups we wanted to try on the new car, though we didn’t quite get the result we wanted. The weather also hampered us at the end of the last session so that didn’t allow us to get a true gauge on where we are at, though I think a few drivers found themselves in the same position. We have a lot of data to go through and we will go back to the drawing board tonight and work on a few things as we didn’t quite end up where we thought we would be.”
Paul Dumbrell – #55 The Bottle-O FPR Falcon
P1: 21st – 1m12.17s (Dean Canto/Paul Dumbrell)
P2: 3rd – 1m10.45s (Dean Canto/Paul Dumbrell)
P3: 27th – 1m11.35s
P4: 4th – 1m10.07s
“It was good for Dean to get some laps in ahead of our next test day and of course the upcoming endurance races as he hasn’t got any laps in the last couple of events as I’ve been in the car. The car felt good at the start and then we tried an alternate set-up in sessions two and three. We struggled with that and just couldn’t find the direction we wanted so right at the end we went back to the base set-up and it was a lot better and that was reflected in our lap times, though there is still a bit of time to find so the team has a bit of work to do overnight.”
Tim Edwards – FPR Team Principal
“It was nice to be back on track today after the break, though we were straight down to business with four busy sessions. We started the day with Dean and Luke in the car as this was their final chance to get some race weekend seat time before the enduros. They worked on longer runs before handing over to our regular drivers. It was somewhat of a frustrating afternoon as it took the drivers a while to find a direction they were happy with. All three tried some different things and Paul seems to be leading the way so we will likely head towards his set-up. There is a bit to do overnight, but we are confident we’ll be strong come qualifying.”