Having been forced to retire from the opening race of the V8 Supercar challenge at Surfers Paradise, Steven Richards bounced back to snare his first win for Ford Performance Racing on the Australian Gold Coast.
Richards saw his opening race come to an abrupt end after he made contact with Jason Bright just two laps from the finish after Bright caught the tyres on the inside of the opening chicane and stopped right in front of the Castrol-backed Falcon with the resulting contact leaving Richards with damaged suspension.
It left Richards with work to do for the remaining two races, with the Falcon lining up 25th on the grid for race two. However, he made light of his starting position to storm through the field to finish in fifth and set himself up well for the final race.
From fifth on the grid, Richards again used his speed and good pit work from his team to climb up the order into the race lead before a late Safety Car period allowed the cars behind to close in. However, Richards held on for his first win of the season.
We had good car speed today and it shows what we are capable of achieving, he said. It is great to win my first race with FPR after two round podiums so far. We actually torched a set of tyres yesterday so we only had eight tyres to use for both of today's races. If we had that extra set, I am sure that we would have been even faster today.
The only issue was that the tyres were a bit cold on the re-start which made me vulnerable for a little while, but as the tyres normalised I was able to easily control the pace of the race. We are in great form for the rest of the season and it is excellent to see the team get some reward for a very hardworking weekend.
Team principal Tim Edwards admitted he was pleased to have salvaged something from a weekend that looked set to be going wrong in every way possible, adding that the team had work to do over the remainder of the season.
![Steven Richards - Ford Performance Racing [Pic credit: FPR]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393058.jpg)
