Winterbottom 'comfortable' for the first time in 10 months

Winterbottom was outside the Top 10 in the first session today, but showed some genuine pace in the second as he charged to third spot, just over a tenth off pacesetter Cam Waters and ahead of both Penske Fords.

Having endured an inconsistent season so far, and staring down the barrel of a first winless season in over a decade, the 2015 series champ admitted that today was the first time he's felt truly comfortable in the car all year.

“It’s sort of taken 10 months to get my car to where I feel comfortable and now we can start to get some good results," he said.

“At the start of the year we had a lot of brake dramas and stuff like that. So a lot of the stuff you tried was irrelevant because whatever you did you had inside-front locking.

“It’s just trying to find the base set-up, different cars in the team have different set-ups, we just weren’t on the right path to running the right thing, and the last four rounds being wet has also hampered us a little bit.

“I just feel we’ve been behind the eight ball a little bit.

“You chop and change, it’s not easy to do at the track – bolt something in and change your driving style to suit that car and what not.

“I don’t know, we’ve just been behind the eight ball, but today made more sense."

Winterbottom went on to explain that set-up direction was key to his good feeling in the car today.

"It’s only practice but at least the changes were responding, when they haven’t necessarily done that previously," he added. "When they respond good or bad it gives you direction.

"It was a nice day to go forward, go backwards, go forwards, and shift the balance.

"[The car] hasn’t had that for quite a while, so it’s been good."