Mark Winterbottom endured a weekend to forget at Surfers Paradise after seeing his weekend fall apart after he was excluded from qualifying on the Gold Coast.

The Ford Performance Racing man had qualified on pole position for the V8 Supercar Challenge but was then sent to the back of the grid for a technical infringement that would effectively ruin the remainder of his weekend.

After his accident in race one with Mark Skaife on the final lap, Winterbottom was left with work to do from 20th on the grid for race two. Although he made up places at the start of the race, Winterbottom lost out when he was called into the pits to fix damage to the rear of his car and could climb no higher than 17th by the time the race drew to a close.

The final race saw Winterbottom finally make the most of his undoubted pace around the challenging street circuit as he came home in fifth place although it was very much a case of what might have been after a weekend that promised much but delivered little.

“It was a very good feeling to know what it's like to finish a race again with all of the car's panels on!” he said after the final race. “The car was very good and once I got out on my own it was easy to set fast lap times. It shows that track position is vital here.

“We had a pretty depressing run this weekend, but to race from 17th to fifth in the third race was a strong result and we go to Bahrain full of confidence to try and win the round.”