MOTORSPORT: Ford breaks through in epic Great Race

It was great, desperate and gripping. In other words it was a typical finish to the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

Only for the first time in its 11-year history Ford Performance Racing managed to cross the line first.

And Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards did it the hard way, navigating brutal conditions, unruly cars and fierce opposition from Triple Eight Race Engineering’s defending winners Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell.

It was finally decided at Mount Panorama’s looping uphill Turn Two on the last lap. Winterbottom moved his Pepsi Max Falcon to the inside and defended, while Whincup did his best to go round the outside.

But the Red Bull Commodore slewed wildly towards the wall and Winterbottom slipped away to a winning lead. The gap was 0.4744 seconds at the flag, the fifth closest in the history of the race

“It was so good to hold that trophy and the reception you get on the podium is just ridiculous,” said Winterbottom.

The win came the day after Ford recommitted to sponsoring the team for 2014 and a month after a disorganised FPR effort at the Sandown 500 prompted a barrage of media coverage, criticism and a regurgitation of the factory team’s long history of missed opportunities and failures.

“The whole team has been written off a few times and what a great way to bounce back,” said Winterbottom, who has borne the brunt of a series of bad pit stops this year. New wheel nuts helped ensure seven perfect pit stops today.

It was fitting that the two fast-men of the meeting, refuelling completed, should go head-to-head for the last 20 laps of the race.

They ran locked together, the margin ebbing and flowing by tenths. Winterbottom was strong across the mountain, Whincup on the straights. It was a high-speed duel of the highest calibre.

“He was making errors, I was making errors, we were absolutely on the limit out there,” said Whincup. “It would have been so easy for one of us to make a mistake and stick it in, so I can’t congratulate him any more. He hung it on the line for over 30 laps and didn’t really make a mistake to cost him the lead.”

They never changed position and in hindsight Dumbrell’s two run-offs hours earlier in his otherwise excellent stint gave FPR the couple of seconds Winterbottom needed to emerge from his final stop in the lead.

“It was the first time I was following cars closely all day, so it was a little brake fade and whatnot and a few mistakes,” Dumbrell said. “You can’t do that on these big days -- it certainly cost us a bit of track position and time. It made it a day of what could have been.”

Behind the front two a dice of epic proportions raged. Jason Bright in the BOC Commodore he shared with Andrew Jones had tailed the top two early in the race’s final dramatic stages, but gradually fell into the clutches of Red Bull’s Crag Lowndes. Then Garth Tander, flying on fresh rubber, crashed the party.

Almost literally…The crucial moment came when the HRT driver shovelled past Bright at Caltex Chase. Both of them pushed wide after contact allowing the Lowndes/Warren Luff car onto the podium. Tander and Nick Percat finished fourth and the BOC Commodore fifth.

There were words between an aggrieved Bright and Tander afterwards, but there was no official action taken. “It’s Bathurst, build a bridge and get over it,” was Tander’s recommendation.

In the feel-good story of the 161-lap race, rookie Scott Pye and veteran Paul Morris finished sixth in their Sargent Security Commodore, employing clever strategy and strict fuel economy. Pye has had a tumultuous year, as has the LDM team he drives for. It was the sort of result that resurrects a season.

For Greg Murphy it was a day to forget. He piled the Holden Racing Team Commodore into the wall at Reid Park, ending his and James Courtney’s chances on the spot. The only other crasher was the Nissan Altima of Todd Kelly and David Russell, which hit a kangaroo when the latter was driving.

Many drivers openly expressed surprise after the race that four-time race winner Murphy was the only driver caught out in the blustery and changeable conditions by the new for 2014 Car of the Future V8 Supercar, which had proved a handful all week on the fast and undulating 6.213km course.

A weekend to forget for the new Nissan and Mercedes-Benzes too, neither brand managing to threaten the final top 10.

Photo gallery of 2013 Bathurst 1000

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