12/9/2010
Ford Performance Racing’s (FPR) Orrcon Steel Falcon has snared second place at today’s L&H 500 at Phillip Island.

Starting from seventh place on the grid, drivers Mark Winterbottom and Luke Youlden drove a calculated race and with the help of the FPR brains-trust running a superior strategy to their competitors, worked their way through the field over the strenuous 113 laps.  

Luke Youlden kicked off a great day in the Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon, and set the scene with a blistering start that saw him launched two places up the grid by the first turn and into fifth place.

“I was really happy with my performance today,” Luke said.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling the pressure of expectation lining up with Frosty … the last thing I wanted to do was come on board and have my times out of kilter with his but the weekend went well.

At most I think I was only one or two tenths off Mark’s times so that was promising … the start also saw me a little anxious after my last effort but today it was all good and managed to play a part in setting us up to where we are now … and that feels pretty good!” Youlden added.

In his opening stint Youlden eventually came under pressure from the likes of Mark Skaife and SBR Ford compatriot John McIntyre, but after succumbing Youlden’s rightful position was soon restored after the first round of pitstops.

The next boon for the Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon was on lap 47 when the call was made for their second pitstop and driver change – which saw an excellent stop by the FPR crew result in Frosty exiting pitlane ahead of Jim Beam racer James Courtney who pitted at the exact same time.

Within a couple of laps Frosty successfully chased down Jack Perkins for fourth place and set his sights on Triple 8’s Craig Lowndes but the veteran driver proved elusive.

“Luke did an awesome job in setting us up for today’s result … when I took over the car it was in great shape and I had enough pace to instantly make a difference to our position,” Frosty said

By lap 68 Frosty was hunting down Owen Kelly for third place and before long was through and in line for a podium finish, but a lap later a Safety Car was called and the second brilliant call by the FPR engineers was made – to bring Frosty in for more fuel and fresh tyres, setting him up for his final stop on lap 80.

This strategy again allowed us to leapfrog the opposition, in this case, the scalp of Lowndes.

“I don’t question the calls,” Frosty quipped.

“They’re the guys with the info … I’m just a robot – pull in – pull out – make ground,” he joked.

“Seriously though it was a great call. We knew we didn’t have the outright pace of Lowndes so we had to come up with other ways to get ahead … and good strategy will do that for you – a real credit to our data guys.”

Sitting in fourth place, Frosty had the task of hunting down a very quick Richards, but not before Jamie Whincup was given a mechanical black flag for spilling oil onto the circuit. With him out of the way and now a podium place back on the cards, Frosty successfully passed a waning Richards and then bolted home for a well earned second place behind Lowndes.

Across the garage in the Dunlop Super Dealer FPR Falcon, James Moffat was given the honour of the starting stint in the 500k slog fest but sadly for the rookie a poor start saw him slip down the order before the first turn.

With a tough job ahead of him, Moffat put his head down to make amends but before long was tagged by a fellow competitor resulting in an off track excursion that further hampered his progress.

Moff clawed his way back up several places before his pitstop for fuel and tyres and held his position until regular driver Steve Richards was called into action on lap 55.

“Stalling off the start line put me behind the eight ball and then I got hit off which meant that we were even further behind the eight ball,” Moffat despairingly said.

“We probably weren’t tracking along too bad but then I made a mistake and went up the road at Honda corner and that sort of finished us.

“I think the car was reasonable, I was struggling a bit towards the end of my stint but Richo seemed to have some pretty good pace for the remainder of the race …  Unfortunately it doesn’t count for much but we¹ll now have to put it us and head towards Bathurst.”

Moffat was right in that Richo did enjoy a strong car and good pace during his final stint, with the Dunlop Super Dealer ambassador making up several places at the expense of championship contenders such as Garth Tander.

“The car was a good race package today,” Richo said.

“It’s never easy when you get stuck a lap down but we powered on and posted some pretty fast lap and sector times which points to better things to come,” Richo promisingly said.

Today’s great result sees Frosty maintain his third place on the championship table, but with the bonus of now only being 60 points off second placed Whincup and 239 points of championship leader James Courtney. Richo also moves up a place into 19^th position with 907 points.

The next event on the Australian V8 Supercar Championship calendar is the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama from October 7-10.