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Chaz Mostert insists he can take positives from Winton, despite crashing out of a potentially winning position in Race 11.
By pitting twice under the race’s single Safety Car, the pole-sitting Prodrive Ford was the only car fuelled to the end of the race at the restart.
At the back of the pack for the resumption, Mostert’s chances of victory evaporated when a collision with James Courtney punctured the Falcon’s right-rear tyre.
Although going unpenalised, Mostert took full responsibility for the mistake which saw his car ride up the side of the Holden, breaking its suspension.
“I had to be aggressive on the restart but shouldn’t have been that aggressive and we just made contact,” Mostert told Speedcafe.com post-race.
“I’m very disappointed but at the end of the day there are a lot of positives with how quickly we turned our car around from the start of the weekend.”
Mostert had driven from a disappointing 10th on the grid to seventh in Saturday’s race, before scoring his third pole of the season on Sunday.
The 24 year-old’s speed has in fact netted six front-row starts from 11 qualifying sessions, which he has converted into a single podium finish.
Mostert, who missed the final four events of 2015 due to injury, remains without a win since August.
“It’s frustrating, but at the end of the day you’ve got to keep trying to convert,” he said of the lack of results.
“At least we’ve got one of the two, we’ve just got to find the other part of the game at the moment.
“The competition is massive this year, it’s crazy how many winners there’s been, but there’s a long way to go.
“We’re just going out there to try to get some champagne. That’s where my head is at.”
Mostert has been working with a new engineer in Brad Wischusen this season following Adam de Borre’s defection to DJR Team Penske.
Still developing their relationship, Mostert notes that the duo have been working largely separately to their team-mates due to the differing driving styles within the camp.
Winterbottom leads the standings after Winton, sitting 11 places and 379 points clear of Mostert.
“The way Cam (Waters) and Frosty (Winterbottom) like their cars is a little bit different than the way I like to drive the car,” said Mostert.
“That probably showed up a little bit last year with the direction that Frosty went with the car and the direction I went.
“Me and my engineer are working hard to get to know each other and this weekend we came along in leaps and bounds.
“This track (Winton) is going to be pretty similar to Darwin so hopefully up there we can carry some speed from the start of the weekend.”
