After qualifying 7th for today’s race Fabian was eager to make early moves on the pack in front. Fabian stayed out to make up some ground whilst most other cars pitted in the first 10-15 laps. After finally pitting himself he was in the leading group of cars and gaining on Craig Lowndes and Chaz Mostert. Chaz went past Lowndes, making a gap for Fabian to get past at the same time. Shortly after, Chaz got one of his rear wheels in the marbles, sending him into a tyre wall backwards. This put Fabian in the lead and brought out the safety car. Cue the safety car scramble! Getting caught up in the frantic pit lane traffic saw Fabian jump back in the queue to 4th. On exit he made quick work to get past Davison before getting past Lowndes. Once he was past Lowndes he was right on the tail of Winterbottom, putting the pressure on him for the race lead, with the gap at times being as little .2 of a second between them. Fabian challenged as much as he could in those final laps, finally ending his weekend on a well deserved podium.
“I thought I had pace on both tyres, the hard and the soft. The car lights up on the soft tyres, you can really drive the car how you want to.”
“I gave it my best shot and tried to take the challenge up to Frosty (Winterbottom), we had a rubber band effect going on there for a while. I kept catching up, he’d pull away and then it’d happen again and again. We are happy, we started 7th and finished 2nd. It was a good day.”
“I’ve got confidence going into the next round at Darwin. The guys have made improvements to our cars in the off-season, we’ve had our first street circuit win and have been on the podium everywhere but Tasmania.”
“Our cars are pretty good on all the circuits that we’ve been too so far so it’s promising. We just need to get those 60-60’s right and we’ll give ourselves a better shot at greater results.”
Sunday 17th May
11:55-12:15 – Qualifying
Position: 7th 1.23.6622 / Pole Position: Chaz Mostert
13:45-15:30 – Race Three – 200kms/67 laps
Position: 2nd / Winner: Mark Winterbottom
1 – Mark Winterbottom - 937
2 – Craig Lowndes - 925
3 – Fabian Coulthard - 851
4 – James Courtney - 810
5 – Jamie Whincup - 801
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