“But sooner or later we have to find the pace to win races. On the positive side we’ve got the pace back to run with Triple Eight and FPR, who have been quicker than us this year.
“That’s the first part of the process; the next part is to get up to the HSV cars. We have to find that missing two or three tenths to keep with them. They have tons of power and that was very evident this weekend, it was a talking point around the pits.
“Ross Stone has said that we will step up the engine program and find more horsepower. While that’s happening we can develop the chassis even more.
“We have some pretty friendly tracks coming up, we won Oran Park last year,
we set the lap record at Indy. But we are going to need fast engines when we get to the pure power tracks like Sandown and Bathurst.
“That’s the game plan and if we can do that there is every chance that we can fight pretty hard at the end of the championship.”
Mark Winterbottom [Ford Credit/BroadIP Racing]
"Our brake problems held us back from a higher finish this weekend and I lost a few spots in the pits during today's third race by overshooting the mark - that dropped me from 7th to 12th on the track. It was a shame that we came to a circuit that suited our cars but one of those annoying problems held us back. Having said this, seventh for the round and the consolidation of my fifth spot in the Championship on a weekend that you struggle at, isn't really a bad weekend at all."
Jamie Whincup [Team Betta Electrical]
"It was certainly an eventful weekend. But I have to say for me personally there were a lot of positives and I seemed to overcome a lot of my previous weaknesses. I qualified well, my starts were good and our brake problem was only caused through trying to avoid other people's incidents. I met my goals of finishing in the top ten this weekend and managed to move up the championship order in the process.”
Mark Skaife [Holden Racing Team]
“We haven’t come to a racetrack and had such dominant car speed, and not won, for a long, long time. The car was the fastest car. When you have that sort of tool and you don’t win, that’s very disappointing. The drama we had in the last race has probably put us a long way out of the spot we thought we would be in. Having said that, there’s a long, long way to go and a lot of races left so we’re not getting too worried about how the points look at this stage. I reported a flat tyre or a deflating tyre as I went down the main straight and the thing was nervous and unstable into Turn 1, then I turned into the next corner and the thing just spun around. By the time we got back the tyre pressure was lower than it should be, but not a lot. It’s hard to tell exactly what went wrong there.”
James Courtney [Jeld-Wen Motorsport]
"Two thirds in race one and two, we were looking at a podium finish. Obviously we are pretty disappointed that we couldn’t finish it off but the team and myself are happier for the results this weekend. In race three I didn’t have to push too hard, I was keeping the guys behind me at bay relatively easily. To finish on the podium would have been a great present for the guys but it just didn’t quite come off. At first I thought that I had a flat in the left rear but that must have been oil on the tyre from the engine. For a minute the engine came right but then it let go. We are using the new D3 engine so I guess sometimes these things happen when you are developing new things. It was still a really positive weekend for us and I can’t wait to get to Oran Park now and have another crack at it.”
Paul Morris [Team Sirromet Wines]
“Today was a lot better for us. In the first race today we tried new brake pads and I had trouble with fading. Then the brakes came good when they cooled down after the Safety Car came out. The cars in front of me had more mid-corner speed, especially at Turns Four and Five, but I was as quick as anyone behind me. We made some changes to the car for the last race, going with a softer front spring and a stiffer rear spring. That got rid of some of the understeer. We made an early pit-stop and my tyres were ‘shot’ by the end. I couldn’t turn the car or get on the throttle and (Dean) Canto passed me in the last few laps.”
