John Bowe has won the opening race of the ENZED Touring Car Masters series at Winton.
The Ford Mustang driver started from pole and won the opening sprint race leading home Jim Richards and Andrew Miedecke and lowering his own lap record in the process.
Bowe took a comfortable 1.6-second victory in a shortened 7-lap race today after an early Safety Car slowed proceedings early in the race.
Bowe led from the two-by-two rolling start and headed the field into turn one, where Steve Mason ran wide and clipped the tyre barrier on the outside of the circuit.
His Shelby Mustang was stranded at turn two, bringing out the Safety Car for a brief two-lap intervention. Bowe led from the restart and was never headed for the remainder of the race, leading home Richards and Miedecke to the flag.
“Our car was very good and it’s nice to win a race given we won the opening round without doing that,” Bowe said.
“We won in Adelaide with consistency but we have very good speed this weekend. I think Jim and Andrew are very close as well as was Tony Karanfilovski until he made a mistake.
“The track is quite grippy and while there isn’t as much gain for us as there is in the V8’s, it’s still fast.”
Richards was secure in second for much of the race, however Miedecke inherited third position early in the race following an off from Mustang driver Tony Karanfilovski.
Having started third, Karanfilovski missed a down-shift entering turn eleven and ran wide, dropping five places to an eventual seventh-placed finishing effort.
