Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Winton Round 5

May 20, 2016


Track: Winton Motor Raceway
Race:  Woodstock Winton SuperSprint
Date:  May 20th 2016

No. 12 MightyMite Ford – Fabian Coulthard
Practice 1    P 14     Fastest Lap 1:20.24
Practice 2     P   5    Fastest Lap 1:19.62   

No. 17 MightyMite Ford – Scott Pye
Practice 1     P 16     Fastest Lap 1:20.29
Practice 2     P 15     Fastest Lap 1:20.01   

Recap Practice 1 and 2: Fabian Coulthard has finished the first day of practice day at Winton Motor Raceway in fifth place overall. Today's two sixty minute practice sessions were run in fine conditions and Coulthard moved steadily up the time sheets as the second session unfolded. The No 12 MightyMite Ford was right on the practice record on the tight and twisty Winton layout and was one of five drivers to beat that time set back in 2014.

Scott Pye concentrated on a race set up in the No 17 MightyMite Ford and set very similar times in both sixty minute sessions. The new track surface appeared to be hampering times late in the final session with a number of drivers struggling to improve their times once new tyres were on the car.

A Co Driver only practice session was added to the schedule today, and Luke Youlden and Tony D’Alberto both were able to get some vital seat time in their thirty minute session. The DJR Team Penske team are taking every opportunity for the co drivers to log laps in the two Ford XR 8's.

Saturday sees qualifying and the first 120km race at the Winton SuperSprint.

Fabian Coulthard Quote: "I feel like we improved the MightyMite Ford during the day but to what level it is hard to know. There was a lot of debris off the racing line particularly through Turn 8. If you were just a few millimeters off you just could not finish the lap. It is going to make for a hard race tomorrow if you don’t qualify well as it will be a single line race track. Pretty much everybody was unable to go quicker on new tyres as the track became worse today"

Scott Pye Quote:  "We never really got a good lap in the second session on the used tyres but thought we would improve once a new set were bolted on to the MightyMite Ford. However the track had become so dirty that we could not really improve at all. It made it a very tough day and puts a big focus on Qualifying because passing is going to be very hard in the race tomorrow. We have some good data and Fabian ran close to the front so we will now focus on a Qualifying result."