Mark Winterbottom has taken the chequered flag three times at Pukekohe, most recently in Race 3 in 2016 and the Bottle- 0 -Ford driver has high expectations heading into the penultimate round of the 2017 season this weekend.
Getting down to the end of the year, each race and each weekend gets more important and this weekend will certainly be a different challenge with some of the resurfacing, but the car has been very quick lately and should be the same this weekend as well.
“Pukekohe's one of my favourite tracks of the season,” Mark said. “It's a fast track and should be even faster this year assuming the portions that have been resurfaced are as smooth as we expect them to be."
"The track has some good passing opportunities and will really work the tyres, but it should be a fun weekend. We finally had a good, clean race on Sunday in Gold Coast, so hopefully we can continue that this weekend. I've had some good runs there in the past, so I'm looking forward to running up front."
Event stats:
NAME: ITM Auckland SuperSprint
DATE: November 3-5
LOCATION: Pukekohe Park Raceway, New Zealand
EVENT NUMBER: 13 of 14
FORMAT: Friday – 2 x 40-min practice; Saturday – 1 x 20-min qualifying, 1 x 70-lap race; Sunday – 1 x 20-min qualifying, 1 x 70-lap race
CIRCUIT: Pukekohe Park Raceway
LENGTH: 2.91-kilometres
DESCRIPTION: Pukekohe, like Sandown, is designed around a horse racing track and is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance. The extremely-fast layout has undergone major changes and while it has been tempered slightly with three new turns at the end of the long back straight, it is still a very fast layout. Tyre preservation is a key to success at Pukekohe.
TRACK RECORD: 1m02.22s, Shane van Gisbergen (2016)
PRA BEST RESULT: 1st – Will Davison (2013, Race 3), Mark Winterbottom (2014, Races 2 & 4), David Reynolds (2015, Race 2), Mark Winterbottom (2016, Race 3)
