Mark Winterbottom put in yet another dominant display for Ford Performance Racing in 'enemy territory' on Sunday to extend his lead in the V8 Supercar Championship Series
Winterbottom won the City of Ipswich 400 just south of Brisbane ahead of veteran Russell Ingall and James Courtney.
He was a runaway winner in the end, winning races two and three to consolidate the top of the table, having taken second spot in race 1. He is now 86 points up on Jamie Whincup - 1572 points versus 1486.
"I said on Friday and Saturday how much we’ve gained as a team and to come up here to actually make points is a great effort," Winterbottom said. "We have gone well in the season so far, have got points ticking over and are still going for race wins at the time."
But Winterbottom was pressured by the resurgent Ingallm, who on the surface appears to have driven Supercheap Auto Racing into the front end of the field and Courtney, who after more than two years in the sport now has a race win to go with his eight podiums.
"He pressured a fair bit and had a great run on the back straight. I keep seeing him in the mirror and I could see his face through the window – he had the race face on. It was quite a good battle," Winterbottom said of the battle that ended when Ingall had a brief off-track excursion.
Ingall held his nerve and used his experience to take second in the last race to come in second overall ahead of his former Stone Brothers Racing team-mate James Courtney.
"Ultra pleased," Ingall said. "It was good. We ran out a little bit towards the end. We changed the car as I said to the guys we might as well use each race as a test session and see what it’s going to do. When it came out of the pit stop it was really strong so I thought I’d give Mark a bit of a push along.
"I had a bit of an excursion at the end there, ran out of rear tyres and talent. The guys told me I still had second for the round so I couldn’t have done much more anyway. Apart from the end of the races everything else was perfect."
