Ford Performance Racing bounced back from a freak accident away from the track to lead the way in practice for the Desert 400 in Bahrain.
The team suffered a scare when the transporter carrying the two Falcons to the circuit was involved in a road traffic accident en-route to the Bahrain International Circuit on Wednesday.
The accident occurred when a car made a sudden U-turn in front of the truck carrying both the FPR Falcons and the two HRT Holden Commodores, with the driver losing control of his truck and the two Falcons falling to the left of the vehicle in their air freight cradles.
Luckily for the team, the damage to the cars was only cosmetic, with both cars ready to hit the track for the opening practice session of the weekend.
Winterbottom set the fastest lap time in practice with five minutes remaining in the second half of the session. The lap was only just ahead of Team Vodafone driver Jamie Whincup as the team sets out to try and defend the title it claimed last season thanks to Jason Bright.
“Hopefully the truck accident used up all of our bad luck for the weekend, as we need to be at the top at the end of the weekend!” Winterbottom reflected. “This is something we haven't done despite having the speed to win rounds for some time now. There is astroturf on the circuit between turns four and five that makes a difference this year, along with a few other corners that are a bit slower with grip being the only problem.
“The car is in good shape – sometimes good things can fall out of the back of a truck! The guys have done a great job to give me a strong car for practice today.”
Team-mate Steve Richards meanwhile was third quickest as he seeks to build on his podium finish last time out at Surfers Paradise.
“We had a set programme of things to work on during practice and we achieved all of our targets,” he said. “The problem around here is that once you have done your first lap of a run here – that's it, that is as fast as you will go. It is really difficult to read into anything that you are doing, because you cannot feel the changes that you make to the car.
![Steven Richards - Ford Performance Racing [Pic credit: FPR]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393647.jpg)
