Winterbottom: “I thought it was race over”

Winterbottom was trying to protect a precarious lead, which he had established thanks to a risky two-stop strategy, when he was caught and passed by out-of-position Erebus driver Russell.

Running a lap down, but on significantly fresher tyres, Russell passed Winterbottom into Turn 7 with four laps to go. But he struggled to pull away, leaving Winterbottom vulnerable to the chasing pack led by Scott McLaughlin and Craig Lowndes.

“When you pass someone you take off, but he just didn’t take off,” said the reigning series champion.

“So not only did he pass me and cost me a second and a half, he created heaps of aero wash. It was frustrating, but it is what it is.

“I thought I was gone. I though the race was over.

“I said to the crew ‘yep that’s it, game over’. But then [McLaughlin] caught me, and Lowndes had a crack [at him], and I was like 'beauty, let’s go.'

“We just got there in the end.”

No anger towards Russell

While the implications of Russell’s move to un-lap himself were potentially huge for Winterbottom, he said afterwards that he essentially had no problem with the rookie’s actions.

“He’s trying to get his lap back so if the Safety Car comes out he’s got better tyres and he can try and come through,” added Winterbottom.

“He’s trying to race his race. He doesn’t race for me. Whatever it is, it is.

“When cars get in the way of battles it’s kind of frustrating, but then Scott [McLaughlin] would have been loving it. Someone wins, someone loses out of it.”

Winterbottom added that he has no plans of confronting Russell about it.

“Chatting about it, what does it achieve? I’m not angry. If we had have lost the race, we would have lost the race. He’s was trying to get his lap back and race for himself.”