Burning questions: Tim Edwards

An invigorated Prodrive Racing Australia came into 2016 with number one on Mark Winterbottom’s car and Chaz Mostert raring to go after recovering from his horror smash at Bathurst last year.

Determined to defend the title, the squad has shown flashes of brilliance, with Winterbottom in the hunt taking one win, three poles and making the most of his bad days.

Mostert’s return hasn’t been as fruitful as he had hoped, despite finding speed straight away, gelling with new engineer Brad Wischusen and being housed in the Rod Nash Racing garage, away from Winterbottom and the pain of double stacking two expected contenders. 

Add experienced rookies Cameron Waters (who stood in for Mostert last year) and Chris Pither both managing surprise pole positions to the mix, and Prodrive is in an interesting spot.

Jack Le Brocq and Garry Jacobson are both battling it out in the Dunlop Series, so there’s plenty at stake for PRA this year. Boss Tim Edwards spoke to supercars.com.

Drivers’ Championship: Mark Winterbottom – 3rd; Chaz Mostert – 9th; Cameron Waters – 18th; Chris Pither – 20th.

Teams’ Championship: The Bottle-O Racing Team and Monster Energy Racing – 2nd; Supercheap Auto Racing 12th; Super Black Racing 14th.

Standout moment this season: Winterbottom’s sole race win in Perth, nursing old tyres while others charged behind him. Waters earned his first pole position and Pither popped up in the top 10, so it was a positive showing all round.

The following event at Winton saw Winterbottom finish third and second, and take the Championship lead on Sunday.

VASC: What is your assessment of your year so far?

TE: It’s going ok. We’re not having a great year – at this point last year we were performing better, so from our own internal perspective we want to be doing better, we know we need to do better. If we want to win the Championship, we have to do better. I think we’re naturally quite critical of ourselves.

It’s been a good year so far, but not a great year.

With two test days coming up – one for car development and the pre-enduro test – how critical are they in helping turn it from a good year to a great year?

Whenever you go testing, it’s important … you could argue that whenever you practice at a race meeting it is testing, which is true, but invariably you never really want to go too far from base. You’re always just tinkering around what you know works at the moment. You haven’t got enough time to make a big bowl of changes that potentially might not work and could comprise potentially the rest of that weekend, because you’ve gone too far away from base.

When you go to a test day you can absolutely explore at your heart’s content because you’ve got the time and there’s no pressure of qualifying coming up, and impacting that. So whenever you go testing it’s important – particularly when we haven’t had a test since before Clipsal.

The guys have got a good list of things they want to try and now’s their opportunity.

How is Chaz’s progress – is he where you expected him to be at this stage of the year?

I don’t think so, but he’s not where he wants to be either, so we’re both on the same page there.

It’s not necessarily attributed to the accident or any after effects of that – I don’t think the car we’ve given him this year has been quite as good as the car he had 12 months ago. So I don’t think how he has performed can all be laid at his feet, because we’ve got a part to play in that as well.

I think he’s now finding his feet with the car and with Brad, his engineer, more than he was two or three months ago.

Probably he, more than anybody, is excited about the test because it will allow them to try those things they haven’t had a chance to.

And don’t forget – the test that he had at the start of the year wasn’t really a test about the car, it was about him remembering where the gear lever is, the steering wheel and the brake pedals, because he hadn’t been in the car for so long.

So, look, he hasn’t gotten the results both of us expected at this point of the year but I think he’s starting to hit his straps now.

Cam and Chris – I think it’s fair to say they’ve both had more seat time than the traditional rookie. Are you happy with where they are both at?

Yes and no. The reality is, for anyone who comes into this Championship, it’s a big ask. What they’re putting themselves up against with the likes of Frosty, Jamie, Craig etcetera, are some of the best drivers in the world. To think you’re just going to come from the Dunlop Series where you have seven rounds, no soft tyres, no pit stops, no strategy – it’s always going to be a big ask for anyone coming into this category in year one to expect them to perform at the same level as some of the veterans.

I’m happy with the feedback they give, I’m happy with their race-craft, they are both learning all the time. Of course I’d like them to be higher in the championship but so would they.

It’s the same thing with Cam (as Mostert). Unfortunately, we’ve let him down on more than one occasion this year with an engine failure and driveshaft failure, so unfortunately part of where he is in the championship is absolutely nothing to do with him and 100 per cent to do with us.

But the most important thing is they’re fitting in well with the team and they’re learning all the time and just getting faster and faster. You saw that on the weekend with Chris, he got pole position – you don’t just fluke those, that’s genuine car speed.

So from that perspective, all four of our cars in the main series have had pole this year. It’s probably never been done in the history of the sport – some two car teams don’t even get to achieve that in a year, so for us to have all four cars I think it demonstrates we have very even machinery and when any one of our drivers gets it right, we have fantastic car speed.

The same can be said for the Dunlop Series – both our Dunlop Series blokes have had a pole as well, so all six cars have sat on pole. That is a fantastic feat for the team in itself.

What is Frosty’s mindset and do you believe he’s going to take it to the Triple Eight guys – who have been so strong – for the championship this year?

Absolutely. He didn’t finish half a lap behind them on the weekend, he finished pretty much on their bumper, they just had track position on us. I don’t think their car was perfect on the weekend and I’m sure they’d say that – and nor was ours. They just happened to get that track position on us and that was the defining act.

If we had’ve been in front, we would’ve been able to control the race because ultimately the lap time difference between those top five, over a 120km race, they all gravitated to be two seconds apart… Even if you’re the faster of those five cars, if you didn’t have track position you’re on the back foot because being a tenth faster isn’t a sufficient advantage to be able to pass that car in front. Really, you’ve got to have a car that’s half a second a lap quicker to potentially pass them.

We’re not happy with how our car is, and if we’re able to have a weekend like that, where in Frosty’s own words, the car wasn’t fantastic – he wasn’t happy with it all weekend but he still came away with very good points from the weekend. If we can do that on weekends when it’s not quite in the window, then we’ll have our days where it’s 100 per cent in the window or close to and we’ll come away with more points than them.

As I say, there’s a lot of things to test – there’s great scope we’ll make the car faster and that’s what we need to do for Frosty.

We know he can drive, we just have to give him a car that’s slightly better than our friends up the road, and that will certainly help us.

How do you see the Dunlop Series battle playing out across the rest of the season?

I don’t mind which of them wins the Championship as long as one of them does!

The great thing is, they’re racing each other quite closely all this year and there’s a healthy level of respect. Yep, both of them want to win the Championship but it’s going to be interesting to watch.

They’re both doing a great job, and to be honest, they’re almost exceeding my expectations that they’re doing it so easy.

By easy, I mean comfortably – they’re not making mistakes, they’re driving aggressively, they’re working hard to do what they’re doing and it’s great to watch. So it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out and who stands on the top step at the very end of the year.