New V8 Supercars Championship leader Mark Winterbottom declared second ‘as good as a win’ at Winton after recovering from a poor qualifying performance.

Winterbottom’s 10th place qualifying effort for Race 11 marked just the second time the reigning champion has started outside the top five all season.

The 35-year-old explained that The Bottle-O team had been caught out by different track conditions in the Sunday morning session, which saw him struggle with mid-to-exit oversteer.

Although confident he had a good race car, Winterbottom was not expecting to gain significant ground on a weekend where on-track passes were hard to come by.

Electing to switch to a three-stop strategy when a Safety Car was called in the early going, however, paid dividends, allowing Winterbottom to rocket up the order.

“Jase (engineer Jason Gray) is doing a bloody good job at the moment of fixing a car that’s not in the window,” said Winterbottom post-race.

“We had a good car in the race and made that (last) set of tyres last 43 laps.

“When Fabian (Coulthard) caught me he was obviously quicker, but if you can brake straight and drive straight it’s pretty damn hard to pass.

“I’m proud of the guys. They stuck to their strategy.

“We thought we had a quick car in the race but it was follow the leader here so we had to do something different.

“They did and we maximised it, so second is as good as a win today for me.”

Gunning for a second straight title, Winterbottom emphasised the importance of consistently banking points during a season that has yielded nine different winners from its first 11 races.

Sixth in the championship just three races ago, the Ford driver now holds a 27 point lead over Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin.

Triple Eight team-mates Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes are next, just 36 and 39 points adrift of the lead respectively.

“It’s great that Tim (Slade) won both days because if Jamie or McLaughlin or Lowndes or whoever wins, it’s very hard to jump them,” said Winterbottom.

“The way the season is panning out, there’s already nine winners and with Chaz (Mostert), Cam (Waters) and Fabian (Coulthard), there’s a lot of guys that are going to win races.

“On those days you’ve got to finish second and that’s why today feels like a win.

“We didn’t have Tim’s pace but we out-strategised some other teams and got in the right position.”