Mostert makes his own way

Despite his Ford Performance Racing teammate Mark Winterbottom leading the V8 Supercars Championship, last-start winner Chaz Mostert says he hasn't been called on to play a supporting role in pursuit of the team's first ever title.

Instead, the instruction from FPR management is that he, Winterbottom and the other two drivers within the team structure, David Reynolds (Bottle-O Racing) and Jack Perkins (Team Jeld-Wen), post the best results they can in their Ford Falcon FG IIs, pushing drivers from rival teams down the finishing list to lower points paying positions.

"We want all four cars to be up there and taking points off the rest, so we all look good in the Championship and Mark keeps that lead in the Championship," Mostert told v8supercars.com.au.

"Everyone is in our team to race, simple as that."

A strong run of form has seen Winterbottom pull out to a 101 point lead over Red Bull Racing Australia's Craig Lowndes, with Lockwood Racing's Fabian Coulthard in third (-140 points) and defending champion Jamie Whincup fourth (-213 points).

If Winterbottom goes on and wins the Championship it will be FPR's first in 12 years of trying. It broke through for its first Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 through Winterbottom and Steven Richards in 2013.

After a somewhat damage-prone start to the year, podiums at the ITM 500 Auckland and a win in Race 15 at the Perth 400 have elevated Mostert quickly into eighth in the pointscore, 407 points off his teammate's pace.

While there's no formal team instructions - team ordersare against the rules in V8 Supercars - Mostert says he and Winterbottom will cooperate on-track when it's sensible.

"If I was 12th and he was 13th and we were struggling for a bit of pace and he was all over me I wouldn't make it hard for him to pass me because I know he will truck on a bit more forward and pass a few more cars," Mostert said.

"There is no point in making it hard for your teammate."

And Mostert revealed this cooperation goes both ways.

"In Perth he was third and I was fourth and I was on heaps better tyres and he basically put the blinker on and let me past. I have never had that before from a teammate and I guess he would be expecting the same thing - and that will be happening."

Mostert said it was important for all four drivers to always put in their best efforts to win, otherwise they would not be paying due respect to the efforts of the staff at FPR.

"FPR has got a great bunch of people, they are an awesome crew of unbelievably talented people and they are working unbelievably hard for two goals - Bathurst and the Championship win. We all have to play our part to try and make sure 60 people get that success and win. We are a team, not just individuals."

Mostert said FPR made progress at last week's Winton test, the first since the sydney.com pre-season hit-out, although he was cautious to predict whether it would help him continue his winning run at Darwin.

"It was a pretty hectic day," he said. "We ran all day from 9am through to 5.30pm and we only just fitted in our whole program. We were lucky enough to get through it. We all tried different things to try and widen the boundaries of what we can and can't do with these cars.

"I think we all saw some progress, so that was good."

Mostert will be looking for vastly better results than last year, when he made his V8 Supercars debut at Hidden Valley in a DJR Falcon. He says it's a "tricky" track for drivers, especially the series of bends toward the end of the 2.9km lap.

"You are a little off camber there. You want to take more speed but you can't, so as a driver's track it is pretty tricky. It's good to have a year under my belt in a V8 Supercar there and we can definitely move a lot up the order from where we were last year."

But winning?

"There is a small percentage chance you are going to win on any given weekend because it is so hard," Mostert cautioned. "There are so many strong competitors out there and everything has got to go your way; your pit stops, your car setup has got to be the best out there.

"And you have got to be in tune, you have got to be driving at your best and Perth was our weekend. We had the best car out there, our pits stops were really, really strong and I was just lucky to click with the track and it all went our way."

Mostert has his eyes onfinishing top five in the Championship this season.