IRWIN Racing’s Mark Winterbottom moved from 12th to sixth in Race 32, as Alspec Racing’s Scott Pye finished 13th in the final race at the Gold Coast 500.

The day started with promise for Pye, who progressed through to the Top 10 Shootout and started 5th for Race 32. 

Qualifying was a bigger challenge for Winterbottom, who received a kerb strike penalty on his fastest lap to start back in 12th.

Winterbottom moved up into the top ten by Lap 3 as both drivers avoided the carnage on the opening laps which saw six cars taken out in a single incident at the beach chicane, with a red flag called to clean up the wreckage.

Pye was held up by traffic after his first stop, before he gave his position to Winterbottom to challenge the cars in front as the pair were locked in a battle-pack with the Boost cars of Kostecki and Brown.

Pye was able to jump Brown in the second round of pit stops and caught back up to Winterbottom before a safety car was called on Lap 72 to recover a broken down car.

Pye received a 15-second post-race penalty for a safety car restart infringement, but his race was also put paid when he was turned around by Brown at the final corner as he took the chequered flag in 13th position.

Winterbottom was able to hang on to a sixth-place finish, the team’s best result on the Gold Coast circuit, and he moved up to ninth in the Drivers’ Championship heading into the final round in Adelaide.

Team 18 returns to the track for the final round of the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship at the VALO Adelaide 500 on 1-4 December.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Scott Pye, #20 Alspec Racing Team 18 Holden ZB Commodore 

Qualifying: 6th (1:10.5074)
Shootout: 5th (1:10.9116)
Race 31: 13th (Fastest lap: 1:11.2906)

“Today was a bit of a disaster for us. We made the shootout and finished up fifth in that which was great, but then we had a run of errors during the race which put us back, so we finished 13th after being spun out at the very end of the race.

‘We had a very fast car so we’ll go back and analyse what we did because if we did a better job today we could have been in the top five to a podium.

“Really disappointed that we wasted it today, but we’ll regroup and have a long chat about this one and we will come back for my home event at Adelaide.

Mark Winterbottom, #18 IRWIN Racing Team 18 Holden ZB Commodore

Qualifying: 12th (1:10.6625)
Race 31: 6th (Fastest lap: 1:11.1409)

“We finished and survived which was great. There was so much carnage today, Qualifying is so key and my kerb strike put me into 12th which was average.

“I made a mega start, worked my way back up and had really good pace. I was passing cars and coming through even until the last couple of laps with Cam [Waters] to get sixth. 

“A solid day, to move from 12th to sixth was great. The car is straight, a couple of doors will get changed and a few stickers and then we go for one more in Adelaide.

“We scored a good bag of points and we made positions, so all in all it was a good day.”