IRWIN

Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and Seiko 5 Sports Racing’s Scott Pye finished the second and final race of the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight in 12th and 15th respectively.

After qualifying sixth in the Top 10 Shootout earlier in the day, Winterbottom was shoved back to ninth on the first lap. Meanwhile Pye, who started 14th, made his way through the pack and found six spots off the start.

Pye showed extremely strong pace to move up to third position by half race distance and was one of the quickest in the field on the soft tyre while others were on super softs. Winterbottom put the super soft tyres on earlier and threatened the top five throughout.

Pye’s great run was affected by an untimely safety car and intermittent power steering issues late in the race which sent him back into the midfield.

The heavens opened with 12 laps to go as the field rolled into pit lane to take on a set of Dunlop wet weather tyres.

Winterbottom was running competitively in seventh with less than ten laps remaining before his car struggled for balance in the wet which saw him drop back to 12th.

Winterbottom and Pye crossed the line in 12th and 15th respectively, however drama struck Winterbottom when he copped a hit at Turn 1 by an out-of-control car 34 after the chequered flag.

Round 2 of the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship heads to Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania on 26-27 March.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Mark Winterbottom, driver #18 IRWIN Racing Holden ZB Commodore

Qualifying: 9th (1:36.6329)
Top 10 Shootout: 6th (1:40.5889)
Race 2: 12th (Fastest Lap: 1:32.6657)

“That’s the first round of the year run and won, we were looking really good in the dry.”

“It was an interesting race. We had really good pace in the dry but no pace at all in the wet and unfortunately it rained and a fair bit went on at the end.

“So a 12th place result wasn’t great but a top ten shootout appearance and sixth in qualifying shows that we had potential today, and then capped it off by getting crashed into after the end of the race!”

Scott Pye, driver #20 Seiko 5 Sports Racing Holden ZB Commodore

Qualifying: 14th (1:37.1392)
Race 1: 15th (Fastest Lap: 1:32.9465)

“We were in contention today, we moved from 14th up to third before anyone starting to pit and we were holding everyone off on the super soft when I was still on the soft tyre.

“Unfortunately we had some issues with power steering so we’ll need to work on that before Tasmania.”

“The best thing is that we had great car speed today, so we will fine tune the car a bit more and fix some of those niggling problems before we head to Tasmania.”