Prodrive to rack up milestone in Townsville

Prodrive Racing Australia may be down on results at the moment after a tough weekend in Darwin, however the Melbourne-based Falcon squad will have reason to celebrate at the Watpac Townsville 400 no matter the outcome.

PRA will compete in its milestone 200th Virgin Australia Supercars Championship round in Townsville, having debuted in the championship under the Ford Performance Racing banner at the 2003 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.

Originally created after English motorsport giant Prodrive bought out Glenn Seton Racing, the team now known as PRA is now owned by Rod Nash, Rusty French and Sven Burchartz and is in its 15th year of Supercars competition.

It featured a three car line-up in its debut season in 2003 comprising now-Triple Eight star Craig Lowndes, former team owner Seton and ex-Stone Brothers pilot David Besnard, who departed at the end of that season.

Craig Lowndes driving for FPR in 2003

It now runs four cars in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship for Mark Winterbottom, Jason Bright, Cameron Waters and Chaz Mostert, the latter under Nash’s Racing Entitlements Contract, as well as two entries in the Dunlop Super2 Series for reigning champ Garry Jacobson and Josh Kean.

The team moved to compete under the PRA banner at the start of the 2015 season in the wake of Ford withdrawing its financial support of Supercars teams, the year it finally broke through and won its first Driver’s Championship with Mark Winterbottom.

Winterbottom has competed in more rounds for FPR/PRA than any other driver in the team’s history; the 2013 Bathurst winner has driven for the team since 2006 in 160 of the 199 rounds it has ever contested.

PRA/FPR has scored 62 championship race wins, 64 pole positions and 182 podium results - however these numbers don’t include the results achieved by the #55 Falcon run by the team for Rod Nash Racing; those statistics are scored separately under RNR’s Supercars history, which dates back to 1998.

Winterbottom won the 2015 drivers' title with Prodrive

PRA joins a range of other current teams that have already reached ‘Club 200’ - DJR Team Penske (as Dick Johnson Racing), Mobil 1 HSV Racing (as Holden Racing Team), Garry Rogers Motorsport and Brad Jones Racing have all surpassed 200 championship round starts, while Triple Eight Race Engineering will reach the mark at the beginning of 2018.

PRA’s driver line-up over the years has included the likes of Winterbottom, Craig Lowndes, Glenn Seton, Jason Bright, Steve Richards, Will Davison and Chaz Mostert as well as endurance race line-ups including off-shore stars Alain Menu, David Brabham, Mika Salo and Will Power.

The team also remains the last Ford team to win the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 - in 2014 with Mostert and Paul Morris.

Mostert and Morris celebrate at Bathurst, 2014