Stone Brothers Racing achieved its third Bathurst podium in as many years as a battling performance from James Courtney and David Besnard gave the Jeld-Wen Ford third place in the Supercheap Auto 1000.
The team's race had looked all but over in the middle stages, when the pit-crew suspected a broken rear roll bar, but the never-say-die attitude of team and drivers kept the #4 car in the race before a late charge from Courtney grabbed an unexpected result.
Starting from third, the youngster avoided the stationary Garth Tander and moved quickly through the frontrunners to lead by lap four. Showing great turn of speed, the #4 then pulled away from the field, giving Besnard a handy lead when Courtney pitted on lap 28.
Only a couple of laps into Besnard's stint, however, the blue-and-silver machine turned into a handful, tumbling down the order to 16th place as the race reached the 50-lap mark, before pitting with a shredded left front tyre and a suspected broken rear roll bar.
A quick check of the rear revealed nothing amiss, however, and, after some adjustments to assist with balance, Courtney rejoined the race, while the SBR crew looked to the damaged tyre for clues, revealing a slow leak as the cause of the handling problems.
While the #4 remained a handful, Courtney was able to continue on and, gradually, the race improved, with another two regular stops on laps 76 and 106 allowing the team to reclaim the lead on lap 129. However, there was still another challenge to overcome, as the Jeld-Wen Motorsport Falcon was out of sync with the rest of the field and still had to make its final fuel stop.
Courtney duly stopped on lap 137 and remained in the car, but the time spent taking on fuel and tyres meant that he relinquished the lead, and dropped back to 13th position.
Making the most of his fresher rubber, however, the former
F1 test driver turned up the wick in the final 25 laps, producing a gritty charge through the field before finally catching and passing a tyre-troubled Steven Richards to claim third place on lap 160.
