Mark Winterbottom brought relief to the V8 Supercar field in race one at Barbagallo, converting his pole position into a race win that ended Garth Tander's run of six straight successes.
The Ford man had to fend off a concerted challenge from front row partner Mark Skaife to hold on to his hard-earned top spot, and was then granted breathing space when the safety car appeared to clear up a first lap clash between rookie Michael Caruso and veteran Jason Bright.
Tander also moved up from third on the grid to challenge his Toll/HRT team-mate before the pace was calmed, and the top three then ran in order to the close, with Winterbottom never seriously under threat once the race resumed on lap eight.
“We thought we'd go well here, but weren't sure how well because it's traditionally a Holden circuit,” Winterbottom said after securing his seventh career win, "In the end, it went pretty smoothly.
“It's always easier when you're in front with an open track mind. Mark got a good launch off the grid and we were side-by-side into the first corner but, after that, I just had to get my head down and do some good times.”
Having been pipped to pole by Winterbottom's last ditch qualifying run, Skaife admitted that he didn't quite have what was needed to take the battle to the FPR man in the race either.
“My car wasn't quite good enough when it needed to be, which allowed Frosty to sneak away," he conceded, "Yesterday, we had a good race car, but didn't get the gain on new rubber. Today, it was the opposite - we tuned it better for new tyres, but probably didn't turn it back enough for the race and it hurt the rear tyres a little at the end.
We'll make a couple of changes tonight, make it flow a little better and see what we can about the Blue Oval boys.”
Having run door-to-door with his team-mate on lap one, Tander survived a spirited late race battle with Winterbottom's FPR team-mate, Steven Richards, before taking third. The reigning champion locked a brake, allowing Richards to sit on his bumper with just two laps to go, but had just enough to keep him at bay.
“We lost a little time on one of the tyres on the stop, but we were never going to be good enough to get around the guys in front," Tander confessed, "We had really good speed and I started chasing Skaifey down for a while, then the tyres started to go away. We had a lot of understeer this morning in qualifying and we changed it, but it turned into a really oversteering car, so we didn't get the most out of it.
![Mark Winterbottom - Ford Performance Racing [Pic credit: Ford/Edge Photographics]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/417041.jpg)
