Ford Performance Racing’ team principal Tim Edwards believes that the factory Ford team’s chequered history at the Bathurst 1000 has made today’s victory all the sweeter.
The Mark Winterbottom/Steven Richards victory is the first at Bathurst for FPR in the team’s 11th attempt.
The squad scored Bathurst podium finishes in its first two years in the championship before embarking on a long drought.
The team has continually fielded fast cars at the Mountain, with this year’s event marking the squad’s seventh front-row start from the last eight races.
A string of issues, including engine failure (2006), incidents (2007 and 2010), fire (2009) and tyre problems (2012), however conspired to keep them off the dais.
“I don’t know where to start,” said Edwards after watching Winterbottom hold off Jamie Whincup’s Red Bull Holden in the closing stages.
“Today is without doubt the greatest day in our team’s history. Winning at Bathurst has been the biggest thing on our list to tick off since we started 11 years ago.
“Everyone knows our history at this race so to win in the manner we did just makes it that much sweeter.
“Mark and Steve were faultless, the pit stops were faultless and our strategy gave us track position at the right times in the closing laps so to come here and execute our plan to the letter all day is very satisfying.”
Pitstops have been a particular bugbear for FPR in recent times, with the team putting great effort into its equipment and processes in the lead-up to this year’s race.
“We’ve been kicked a bit but we’ve worked hard,” said Winterbottom of recent criticism.
“The guys at the workshop don’t just cop it on the chin, they work hard.
“They bought 200 new wheel-nuts. We had an engineer group working purely on wheel nuts, so you can imagine how happy they’re going to be when we get back.
“We didn’t have any issues all day, so we’ve proven that we can do it.”
The Bathurst victory has seen Winterbottom close to within 142 points of championship leader Whincup.
Craig Lowndes, who finished third at Bathurst, sits between the pair, now just 28 points ahead of Winterbottom.
