Mark Winterbottom – “Once you get Motorsport in your blood it’s really addictive”

“Once you get Motorsport in your blood it’s really addictive”

Mark Winterbottom talks to 51 Thoughts about how he got into Motorsport, winning Bathurst 2013 and how he thinks he will go for the rest of the year.

Prodrive Racing (Australia)’s Mark Winterbottom first started his sporting playing Soccer for many years. One day while Mark and his Mum were out at a shopping centre they spotted a two dollar raffle ticket where the main prize was a Pee-Wee 50 Motorbike (Second place won a meat pack and third place got a handshake). They brought the ticket thinking that they wouldn’t win however they got a phone call to say that they had won the bike. Mark first raced the Pee-Wee 50 at Amaroo Park where they had a flat dirt bike track with no jumps. At that time Amaroo Park was one of the tracks used in the V8 Supercars Championship and he was lucky enough to watch a race there after he raced. “I rode the Pee-Wee 50, had lunch and then went and watched Brock win in Amaroo so it was kind of a cool first up experience to motorsport”.

Mark continued to play Soccer while he was racing the Pee-Wee 50, Mark felt that he would be playing Soccer still if they didn’t buy that ticket. “That two dollar changed career paths pretty quick”. When Mark was eleven years old he sold the bike and brought a Go-Kart which he raced for ten years. At the time a Go-Kart and engine cost $12,000 dollars so Mark went to the bank and got a loan so he could race in Karts. In his final year Mark won the “Ford Cup Stars Championship”, in doing so he won a scholarship to race in a Formula Ford. Ford gave him $100,000 to go towards his new Formula Ford car and he also received sponsorship money from his sponsor Bosch “so they donated a bit and again I made up the shortfall by working and paying for it. So it was about $150,000 for the year.”

In 2013 Mark won his first Super Cheap Auto Bathurst 1000 title by five tenths of a second over Red Bull Racing Australia’s Jamie Whincup, in one of the most memorable conclusions that has ever taken place at Bathurst. Both guys had fast cars but Winterbottom edged in front and never looked back. Mark describes that race as the best race of his life and “ to win makes you hungrier for more, it was an awesome race and to just finish it and see the celebrations that go on it was an amazing feeling. “ Even though Mark had to give up the trophy last year, his team made him a replica of the trophy, which he has put on a shrine in his house.

Mark felt that season 2014 was good for five months, but after having a 200 point lead he was disappointed that he could not go on and win his first V8 Supercars title, as he blew a 200 point lead where he felt he should have gone on and won. He won at Pukekohe, Winton and Darwin last year and felt that car speed and the way that the car looked after the tyres (after the rule change which saw tyres were set to a controlled pressure) in the middle to later part of the year cost them. “It was a hill that we couldn’t climb we just kept sliding further down so just car speed. If you have car speed you can dig yourself out, if you’re struggling for speed”.

Every year when the endurance races role around, (Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000 and Gold Coast 600) Mark finds them physically easier to drive as he shares a car with his team-mate Steve Owen, compared to “Adelaide and Homebush where your sitting in the car for two and a half hours in the seat where it is over forty degrees”. In saying that endurance races are mentally draining because at places like Bathurst it feels like you have driven for eight hours when you have only driven for three. Mark found last year’s Bathurst, the weirdest he has raced in, including stopping at lunchtime and having lunch with his teammate was odd because “normally you see each other at 9-10am in the morning and then you see each other at 5pm when you finish”. His car was the one to beat for most of the day but the way it panned out was bizarre but disappointing as well. “Fuel strategies and we led pretty much all day but safety cars kept costing us because we tried to keep track position and others cars kept putting fuel in and at the last stop we got jumped. It was weird to be the car to beat all day and pop out 15^th because of fuel.”

Heading into 2015, with the new FGX Mark wasn’t sure how the new car would go due to changes that were made including the new aero-dynamics package for the car. The car rolled out at Sydney Motorsport Park (Eastern Creek) test weekend really well. He felt they were heading for a good year and they would be strong on faster tracks. He felt that the car would be strong on fast tracks. However he did admit that it limited test days “it was unknown what would happen when you got to Adelaide, Winton, Tasmania etc.”

He believes that this year they are getting there car setups right more often than not. He feels that the team makes great use of their workshop time well which has allowed him to have a great start so far this year. Between rounds Mark and his engineer (please insert the name here) do a lot of analysis of the data that they collect from the car and discuss what worked well and didn’t work at the previous round. “When you get to the track, you only have what you took to the track so if you haven’t prepared at the workshop you’re not going to make the car quicker at the race track. So all the work is done at the factory and the tinkering is done at the racetrack”. When the race is just about to start, Mark concentrates on making sure that everything is “following” and that he enters the start box correctly, that he can put the car in neutral straight away and concentrate on making a good start and not watching the guy beside him. “It’s when you roll up half a metre short of where you have to and the guy is yelling at you to move up. You move up on the grid and you try and put it into neutral and you can’t find neutral and you get rattled, that’s when you have a bad start.

Every year Mark looks forward to racing at Bathurst as it’s a fun track to drive on with numerous challenges. “It’s the most fun to drive on, it’s fast and physical and across the top is the best piece of track to go to. Go through Reid Park where you have a slight lift and the car is sideways into Skyline. Across the top, 200km/h feels like you’re doing 400km/h. That’s the quickest and scariest part.“

When Mark was younger he enjoyed watching Glenn Seton and John Bowe but he was a big Peter Brock fan. Mark was lucky enough to meet Brocky when he was five years old and he describes meeting him for two minutes as an experience he will never forget “He took me in, signed my autograph, and it made me feel special.” Mark was lucky enough to race against Brock at Bathurst in 2004. Mark made a pass on Brock down the legendary Conrod Straight and even though they were both racing in the pack that day Mark felt that was one of his coolest moments in his career to date. However he would have liked to race Brocky in his heyday as “you always want to race your idols in their heyday not when there retiring and running around”

Away from the track Mark enjoys relaxing with his family which allows him to take his mind off Motorsport. “It’s just race on the weekend, relax during the week and look forward to the next one”. Mark has a 256 point lead so far in the championship and hopes to continue on with the good form he has shown at the start of the year.