Ford Performance Racing(FPR) has finished the opening day of action at the L&H 500 at Phillip Island confident it can be a challenger in tomorrow’s two qualifying sessions and sprint races despite an up and down day at the island circuit.
Regular drivers Mark Winterbottom, Will Davison and Paul Dumbrell were finally joined in anger by co-drivers Steve Richards, Luke Youlden and Dean Canto for the day’s three 40-minute practice sessions.
All six drivers spent lengthy periods behind the wheel and gained valuable knowledge about how their factory Falcons perform on worn tyres – vital for success in Sunday’s feature race.
The team focussed on its race pace, rather than resorting to short runs on new tyres, thus also saving extra sets of new Dunlop control rubber for the weekend.
Winterbottom experienced the only difficulty of the day when his third practice session prematurely ended following contact with a hare at Turn 3.
Despite minimal damage, which has since been easily repaired, he stopped the car on the side of the track to prevent any further damage to the engine.
Saturday is a busy day at the L&H 500 with two practice sessions to start proceedings, followed by two qualifying sessions and two sprint races to determine the grid for Sunday’s 113-lap main race.
DRIVERS’ VIEW
Mark Winterbottom & Steve Richards – #5 Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon
Practice 1: 1m34.86s – 15th
Practice 2: 1m35.92s – 17th
Practice 3: 1m36.19s – 28th
Winterbottom:
“We didn’t get a chance to put new tyres on at the end as we hit a hare which ran across the track in front of me at Turn 3 which is a fast corner. It stopped at the side of the track and then tried to play chicken with me and obviously lost. The hare hit the middle of the radiator and that put the oil pressure through the roof and I had to stop out on track which meant we didn’t get to do our green tyre run at the end. We just need to tidy the car up a little to improve it. The pace I was doing on worn tyres was good and as we didn’t use as many tyres today we have more for tomorrow which is when it counts so we’ll try and put it in a good position for qualifying.”
Richards:
“It was good to get back into the groove and get an understanding of where the car is at ahead of qualifying tomorrow where we will be able to make the most of the new tyres. It was a typical Phillip Island day today as the track improved across the morning as the temperature rose, it dropped off in the middle, then came back a bit at the end. Frosty’s tangle with the hare cost us some time which is never ideal, but the damage was minor so we will be fine tomorrow.”
Will Davison & Luke Youlden – #6 Trading Post FPR Falcon
P1: 1m34.41s – 6th
P2: 1m36.01s – 19th
P3: 1m34.12 – 9th
Davison:
“Today was okay. We have a bit of work to do as we only used worn tyres, though considering that we are ok and if we did use new tyres we would have comfortably been in the top few cars. Today was all about longevity and working on race set-up and strategy so we weren’t going for lap time today. There is certainly improvement to come and the balance of the car needs to be improved to ensure we are at the front on new tyres, but between Luke and I, I’m confident the car will be good on new tyres. We need a bit more speed to have a pole position car though I’m sure we will work on a few things overnight to improve the car where it needs to and be right up the front tomorrow.”
Youlden:
“I felt comfortable straight up but we ran the same tyres pretty much all session though we made changes to counter that so we were always there or thereabouts. Unfortunately I was affected by the fluid from Frosty’s car when he had his incident which meant we missed our last run so that is a little frustrating. Tyres degrade here a lot so it is a challenge to set up the car, though everyone is in the same boat so we can’t complain.”
Paul Dumbrell & Dean Canto – #55 The Bottle-O FPR Falcon
P1: 1m34.48s – 9th
P2: 1m35.03s – 7th
P3: 1m34.05s – 8th
Dumbrell:
“The car was reasonably good on the older tyres which we ran on today though everyone will have a bit of work to do so I don’t think we are any different from the majority of the field. Our plans changed late in the day when Mark (Winterbottom) had his little incident but we have two more sessions in the morning before qualifying so that will give us enough time to do what we need to. We also have an extra set of new tyres up our sleeve which will likely be helpful at some point over the weekend so overall we are in pretty good shape.”
Canto:
“This is the first time I’ve had a good run in the car and to use a set of green tyres near the end certainly put a smile on my dial – it is a nice thing to drive one of these cars on new tyres. Friday is a hard day to read where anyone in the field is as everyone is doing different things with set-up, fuel and tyres, but we are pretty happy overall. Paul and I have slightly different driving styles so we need to tweak the car accordingly to make us both comfortable but the engineers will work on that overnight and I’m sure we’ll be strong tomorrow.”
Tim Edwards – FPR Team Principal
“I think everyone in the team is happy to finally be on track and it was great that all six drivers spent a good amount of time in their respective cars. Mark obviously had his day cut short when he made contact with a hare at Turn 3, but the car has been repaired so we won’t be compromised at all tomorrow. Today was very much an exploratory day and we didn’t use our best tyres so while the times don’t look impressive we know what we need to do overnight to improve and we expect a strong showing in qualifying tomorrow.”