Virgin Australia LASTCAR Championship: Power Steering failure leaves Winterbottom last at Townsville

Friday 8 July 2022

Power Steering failure leaves Winterbottom last at Townsville

Original by Fox Sports, edited by me.

Mark Winterbottom picked up the 8th last-place finish of his career when his #18 Irwin Tools/Fuchs Holden finished under power, 19 laps down in the first race at Townsville. The finish came in Frosty's 573rd start.

Mark Winterbottom, along with James Courtney and Will Davison, are the veterans of the Supercars series. Nicknamed Frosty, Winterbottom is in his 19th full-time season, and has 1 championship, won in 2015. He was 10th in Practice 1, then fell to 17th in Practice 2. He recovered to 13th in Qualifying.

Chris Pither in the #22 Coca-Cola Holden started the race in the rear, but James Golding in the #31 Subway Holden immediately ran over the back of James Courtney in the #5 Snowy River Caravans Ford, dropping to last. Golding pulled into the Garage on lap 2, losing 4 laps in repairs.

A lap later Macauley Jones in the #96 Drill Pro Services/tools.com Holden pulled into the Garage after contact with teammate Jack Smith in the #4 SCT Logistics Holden and Chris Pither in the #22 Coca-Cola Holden, severely damaging both Jones and Smith, sending both the garage, dropping Jones to last on Lap 7. Jones lost 5 laps in repairs. Smith fell to last on Lap 10 and lost 15 laps in repairs.

This would remain the same for the greater part of the race, with every car still running.

It looked like Mark Winterbottom in the #18 Irwin Tools/Fuchs Holden was going to be the one retiree from the race, pulling into the Garage on Lap 67 with Power Steering failure. He lost 19 laps in repairs, falling to last on Lap 83, but did manage to complete enough laps to be classified. Todd Hazelwood in the #35 Truck Assist Holden rounded out the bottom five.

The Bottom Five

Mark Winterbottom	69 Laps	Running
Jack Smith	71 Laps	Running
James Golding	82 Laps	Running
Macauley Jones	82 Laps	Running
Todd Hazelwood	87 Laps	Running

Driver’s Championship

Pos	Driver	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1	Scott Pye	4	5	5
2	Jack LeBrocq	3	4	5
3	Garry Jacobson	2	3	4
4	James Courtney	2	2	3
5	Jack Smith	1	5	9
6	Jake Kostecki	1	5	6
7	Will Brown	1	5	5
8	Andre Heimgartner	1	3	3
9	Chaz Mostert	1	2	4
10	Bryce Fullwood	1	1	5
11	Zak Best	1	1	1
12	Chris Pither	0	4	7
13	David Reynolds	0	3	4
14	Thomas Randle	0	2	4
15	Nick Percat	0	2	3
16	Macauley Jones	0	1	4
17T	Jordan Boys	0	1	3
17T	Brodie Kostecki	0	1	3
19T	Jayden Ojeda	0	1	2
19T	Mark Winterbottom	1	1	2
21T	Anton De Pasquale	0	1	1
21T	Will Davison	0	1	1
21T	James Golding	0	1	1
22	Todd Hazelwood	0	0	4
23	Lee Holdsworth	0	0	3
24	Cameron Waters	0	0	1

Team’s Championship

Pos	Team	No.	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1	Team 18	2	5/2	6/2	7/2
2	Matt Stone Racing	2	3/2	4/2	8/2
3	Premair Racing	2	2/2	7/2	11/2
4	Tickford Racing	5	4/5	11/5	18/5
5	Brad Jones Racing	4	3/4	9/4	21/4
6	Erebus Racing	3	1/3	8/3	10/3
7	Walkinshaw Andretti United	3	1/3	5/3	9/3
8	Grove Racing	2	0	3/2	5/2
9	Dick Johnson Racing	2	0	2/2	2/2

Manufacturer’s Championship

Pos	Manufacturer	No	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1	Holden	18	15/18	36/18	67/18
2	Ford	9	4/9	15/9	27/9

No comments:

Post a Comment

How Juniorgeneric defines a Last-Place finisher

Australian V8 LASTCAR'S Official Definition of a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF)

For the purposes of the Australian V8 LASTCAR championship rankings and statistics, a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF) is a driver(s) who, after qualifying for a V8 Supercars Championship Points-Paying race, the result must be confirmed from official sources, or unofficial sources failing that. Only one driver (or two in a endurance race) can be classified as the LPF for that race.

Meeting those requirements, the LPF can be any driver classified as such for any reason, including, but not limited to.
1) A "did not start" although it should be noted that there is a difference between my definition of "did not start" and Brock Beard's definition of "Did not Start".
For example, in Bathurst 2015 Chazz Mostert and Cameron Waters' #6 Pepsi Max Ford had a huge accident during practice that injured Mostert and all but wrote off the car. Car #6 was withdrawn, and therefore I don't count Mostert and Waters as finishing last. Under Brock Beard's definition, however, Mostert and Waters would have finished last instead of David Wall and Chris Pither.
2) An entrant who encounters an event once the race has started which prevents the driver(s) from finishing ahead of any other qualified entrants, including both DNFs and drivers who finish under power but laps down*

*Only when all the cars in the race are running ahead of the LPF

3) A decision to “start and park” the driver’s entry (Extremely rare in V8 Supercars)
(4) a disqualification handed down by V8 Supercars and/or track officials that subsequently classifies the driver(s) in the final position behind the unofficial LPF.

Australian V8 LASTCAR shall not consider the LPF as anything else, including but not limited too
1) Any DNQ's
2) Any driver's who's car withdrew before the race start.
3)The lowest-ranked driver who finishes the race under power (unless all cars finished under power, actually quite common in V8 Supercars)
4) A driver(s) who finished last initially, however post-race disqualifications usurped the spot.
5) A driver(s) who may be catagorised as finishing last for exhibition events (I may bring these back at some point in the near future, I need more accurate numbers for the events before I start them up again)
6) Anything in non-V8 Supercar Main game (again, insufficent historical data)
7) A driver who was running last when the checkered flag fell, however because they greeted the checkered flag but a drive who was in front of them at the end of the race, however was not running at the end of the race. In that instance the driver who doesn't finish the race will fall behind the driver whom is still running at the end of the race.

In the rare event where official results or a preponderance of unofficial results are later updated with more accurate information about who was the LPF for that event, Australian V8 LASTCAR rankings and statistics shall be updated to reflect that change.