Mark Winterbottom

Mark James "Frosty" Winterbottom (born 20 May 1981) is an Australian semi-retired professional racing driver. He currently drives the No. 6 Ford Mustang S650 with Cameron Waters as an endurance co-driver in the Repco Supercars Championship. His career highlights included winning the 2013 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 (with Steven Richards), twice winning the Sandown 500 (2006 and 2015) and receiving the Mike Kable Young Gun Award in 2003. Winterbottom has also won his maiden championship title in the 2015 International V8 Supercars Championship, making it the first title for Ford in five years.

Winterbottom retired from full-season driving at the end of the 2024 Supercars Championship, but continued as a co-driver in the endurance races for Tickford Racing, driving alongside Cameron Waters.

Early career Beginnings

Winterbottom made his motorsport debut racing motorbikes, racing in club level 50 cc events, progressing to the 80 cc class and competing in fields that included riders Anthony Gobert and Chad Reed. Winterbottom raced whenever he could between his soccer commitments. Raced a dirt Mini-Speedcar and won the NSW and ACT State Championships.

Karting Winterbottom competed in his first kart race in the Cadet class at Wollongong (NSW) and would continue racing karts successfully to the age of 21. Winterbottom won ten Australian Kart Championships and 25 state Kart Championships during his rise through Australia's karting ranks. Winterbottom's national titles were six Clubman Light titles, three Junior National Lights titles and one Junior Clubman title.

In 1998, Winterbottom visited America on a family holiday and heard about a major karting event taking place close by – so a last-minute decision was made to rent a kart locally and compete. Winterbottom then won the Knoxville State Championship title race. In 1999 he competed in Japan at the Suzuka Champions Kart race on invitation.

In 2001, Winterbottom was crowned as Australian Formula A Kart Champion.

Formula Ford

The Spectrum 09 in which Winterbottom placed 2nd in the 2002 Australian Formula Ford Championship.

In 2001, Winterbottom made his Formula Ford debut in the Victorian Formula Ford Championship. Winterbottom raced to runner-up honours after winning four races out of six rounds, missing one round due to karting commitments. He won the Ford Kart Stars Scholarship Championship, gaining a Ford-supported drive in the 2002 Australian Formula Ford Championship.

Winterbottom finished second in the 2002 Australian Formula Ford Championship with two round victories, five race wins and two pole positions. The championship was won by Winterbottom's future V8 Supercars rival Jamie Whincup. He was presented with 2002 Avon Formula Ford Rookie of the Year Award.

Touring car career Development Series

In 2003, Winterbottom became the Konica V8 Supercar Series champion in his debut season. Winterbottom raced with Ford team Stone Brothers Racing (SBR) to five round victories and six pole positions in an almost perfect season. Two of Winterbottom's race victories were gained from rear-of-field reverse grid starts. He missed out on making a clean sweep of the series due to an engine failure in the fifth round at Phillip Island.

Winterbottom also debuted in the V8 Supercars Championship at the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 with SBR, sharing a BA Falcon with Mark Noske. Winterbottom and Noske finished 11th at Sandown, before qualifying 16th at the 2003 Bathurst 1000 and then retiring at three-quarter distance whilst running in third with engine problems.

Winterbottom was the recipient of the Mike Kable Young Gun Award.

Larkham Motor Sport Winterbottom joined Ford V8 Supercar team Larkham Motor Sport (LMS) and competed in the 2004 and 2005 V8 Supercar championships. Highlights of his debut season included a fifth-place finish at Bathurst and sixth-place result at Sandown in 2004. Winterbottom's best qualifying result was fifth at the Darwin round in 2005. The lowlight was at the V8 Supercars China Round in which Winterbottom avoided injury after a loose drain cover penetrated the chassis floor and damaged the driver's seat.

Ford Performance Racing 2006

Winterbottom joined Ford Performance Racing (FPR) as driver of the number 5 Ford Credit Falcon for the 2006 and 2007 V8 Supercar championship seasons. This appointment continued Winterbottom's career-long involvement with Ford Australia from the karting ranks all the way to a lead role with Ford's major V8 Supercars team.

Winterbottom claimed his first V8 Supercars round victory co-driving with Jason Bright at the 2006 Betta Electrical 500 and gained second place overall round finishes at Pukekohe and Surfers Paradise. By the midpoint of the season, Winterbottom had climbed from 22nd to third in the championship standings and added two further podium finishes with a third at Symmons Plains Raceway and second at Phillip Island. Phillip Island also saw Winterbottom achieve his first V8 Supercars sprint race victory. With nine top ten finishes for the season, Winterbottom had secured third place in the Drivers' Championship in just his third season of main V8 Supercar Series competition.

2007 Winterbottom achieved fifth in the championship, with the highlight being winning his first solo V8 Supercars round at the Desert 400 in Bahrain, preserving FPR's undefeated record at the international round. However, due to a poor start to the championship, Winterbottom was only able to finish fourth in the championship, with three race wins. Teammate Will Davison finished narrowly ahead in third, aiding FPR's rise in the Teams' Championship to finish second for the first time.

2014

In 2014 Winterbottom started the season very well, leading the championship by 161 points after the 2014 Skycity Triple Crown in June. Despite high hopes of claiming his first title, Winterbottom's campaign ultimately crumbled against the Triple Eight juggernaut. He did not win another race after the Darwin round. At the 2014 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, Winterbottom was a chance of going back-to-back late in the race, until an incident with an attacking Craig Lowndes resulted in him dropping back, and eventually recovering to take a fifth-place finish. As in 2012, going into the final round in Sydney, Winterbottom was second with Whincup in first and out of reach. However, Shane van Gisbergen won the Sunday race to demote Winterbottom to third in the standings.

Prodrive Racing Australia 2015

In 2015, Prodrive Racing Australia (the new name for Ford Performance Racing, due to reduced support from Ford) debuted the Ford FG X Falcon, and it brought considerable success almost immediately, with Winterbottom taking four wins out of four races at the non-championship V8 Supercars Challenge event at the Australian Grand Prix. Winterbottom then achieved eight race wins in the middle part of the championship year, including a clean-sweep of the 2015 Castrol Edge Townsville 400. This resulted in Winterbottom taking a large championship lead into the endurance races. Driving with Steve Owen, Winterbottom then went on to increase his lead with his ninth win of the year at the 2015 Wilson Security Sandown 500, before finishing second at the 2015 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. Despite not winning a race after Sandown, Winterbottom held on to secure his first championship title in a showdown against Craig Lowndes at the final round, the Sydney 500.

2016 Winterbottom had a slow start to his championship defence, not achieving a podium finish until the fifth race of the season at Symmons Plains. Winterbottom's first victory of the year was at the Perth SuperSprint, where on older tyres he held off Scott McLaughlin by under half a second. Two podiums at Winton gave Winterbottom the championship lead, before a poor event in Darwin dropped him back in the standings. Solid results at Townsville and Queensland Raceway followed, leaving Winterbottom third in the championship standings before the winter break. However, a decline in pace in the second half of the season left Winterbottom to finish sixth in the championship, with only one further race victory, at the Auckland SuperSprint.

2017

2017 saw Winterbottom complete a winless year for the first time since moving to Ford Performance Racing in 2006. Highlights included podiums at the Phillip Island 500, Townsville 400 and Auckland SuperSprint, while the lowlight was crashing out of the Bathurst 1000 on the penultimate lap while battling for fifth place. Winterbottom secured sixth in the championship for the second consecutive year, albeit only after Craig Lowndes' late retirement at the season-ending Newcastle 500.

Tickford Racing 2018

In 2018, Prodrive Racing Australia was again renamed, to Tickford Racing, and Winterbottom began the year with a top five Saturday result at the Adelaide 500 before a pit lane penalty dropped him down the field in the Sunday race. His fortunes did not improve, with Tickford Racing enduring a difficult start to the season until Winterbottom scored both his and Tickford Racing's first race podium of the year at the fifth event at Barbagallo. It was confirmed on 1 November that Winterbottom would leave Tickford Racing at the end of the 2018 season, after 13 years with the team. Despite a difficult final season with the team, in which he finished only 12th in the championship, Winterbottom left the team with a record of 412 race starts, 38 wins, 35 poles and 117 podiums.

Team 18 Winterbottom announced ahead of the 2018 Newcastle 500 that he would be moving to Team 18 in 2019, the first time he would drive a Holden in his career. Winterbottom achieved Team 18's first ever race victory in 2023 at the Darwin Triple Crown.

At the end of 2024, after six year with the team, Winterbottom was replaced at Team 18 by Anton De Pasquale. Winterbottom found himself without a full time drive for 2025, after failed contract talks with PremiAir Racing and Brad Jones Racing.

Return to Tickford Racing (co-driver) Following the end of Winterbottom's full-time career in the championship, Winterbottom returned to Tickford Racing for 2025 as a co-driver to Cam Waters in the endurance leg of the season. Waters and Winterbottom achieved a second place finish at The Bend 500.

Winterbottom returned to partner Waters at Tickford in 2026, however he was called up to race Thomas Randle's car in the final race of the Darwin Triple Crown, after Randle had felt unwell after qualifying. Winterbottom received the news he would be racing an hour before the start, while he was working on commentary for the Super2 Series support race.

Stock Car Brasil In 2014 and 2015, Winterbottom appeared in the season-opening two-driver round of the Stock Car Brasil championship, for Voxx Racing. In 2014, he drove alongside Sérgio Jimenez to fourth at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace whilst in 2015 he finished second with Marcos Gomes at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna. Just like Winterbottom, Gomes went on to win his respective championship title in 2015. Winterbottom returned to Brazil in 2018, finishing eleventh at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace driving with Átila Abreu, despite starting from the rear of the grid.

At the conclusion of his Tickford Racing stint, Winterbottom had received an offer to contest the championship full-time in 2019. Having described the opportunity as "appealing", he declined on the grounds that it wasn't a binding contract.

Personal life Winterbottom is the son of the 1969 and 1974 Australian Sprintcar Champion and former chairman of the Sprintcar Control Council of Australia, Jim Winterbottom. Educated at Doonside Technology High School, Winterbottom took up the sport of soccer from the age of six, and by eleven was competing with a state level team, (Blacktown United) in matches across New South Wales. He made the decision to give up soccer to pursue his motor racing ambitions at the age of eleven.

Winterbottom was used as the voice of the character Frosty Winterbumper in the Australian Release of the 2011 Pixar film Cars 2. He also appeared as a contestant on Season 3 of the Seven Network's celebrity series Australia's Greatest Athlete in 2011.

In 2015, Winterbottom played in the EJ Whitten Legends Game, an Australian rules football charity match to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer. He trained with the Essendon Football Club in the lead up to the match, with Winterbottom being a supporter of the club in the Australian Football League.

Career results Karting career summary SeasonSeriesPosition 1995 Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Junior National Light 1st 1996 Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Junior National Light 1st 1997 Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Clubman Light 1st 1998 Knoxville State Karting Championship 1st 1999 Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Formula Yamaha Light 1st 2000 Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Formula Yamaha Light 1st2001 Ford Kartstars Series 1st Australian National Sprint Kart Championships - Clubman Light 1st Australian Formula A Kart Champion - Rotax 125cc 1st

Circuit racing career Season Series Position Car Team 2001 Australian Formula Ford Championship 17th Spectrum 06b Ford Bosch Batteries Victorian Formula Ford Championship 7th Spectrum 06 Ford 2002 Australian Formula Ford Championship 2nd Spectrum 09 Ford Borland Racing Developments 2003 Konica V8 Supercar Series 1st Ford AU Falcon Stone Brothers Racing V8 Supercar Championship Series 44th Ford BA Falcon 2004 V8 Supercar Championship Series 18th Ford BA Falcon Larkham Motor Sport 2005 V8 Supercar Championship Series 29th Ford BA Falcon Larkham Motor Sport 2006 V8 Supercar Championship Series 3rd Ford BA Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series 5th Ford BF Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2008 V8 Supercar Championship Series 2nd Ford BF Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2009 V8 Supercar Championship Series 5th Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2010 V8 Supercar Championship Series 3rd Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2011 International V8 Supercars Championship 3rd Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2012 International V8 Supercars Championship 3rd Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2013 International V8 Supercars Championship 4th Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2014 International V8 Supercars Championship 3rd Ford FG Falcon Ford Performance Racing 2015 International V8 Supercars Championship 1st Ford FG X Falcon Prodrive Racing Australia 2016 International V8 Supercars Championship 6th Ford FG X Falcon Prodrive Racing Australia 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship 6th Ford FG X Falcon Prodrive Racing Australia 2018 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship 12th Ford FG X Falcon Tickford Racing 2019 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship 13th Holden ZB Commodore Team 18 2020 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship 10th Holden ZB Commodore Team 18 2021 Repco Supercars Championship 10th Holden ZB Commodore Team 18 2022 Repco Supercars Championship 9th Holden ZB Commodore Team 18 2023 Repco Supercars Championship 15th Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Team 18

Super2 Series results Super2 Series results Year Team No. Car 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Position Points 2003 Stone Brothers Racing 41 Ford AU Falcon WAKR1 WAKR2 WAKR3 ADER4 EASR5 EASR6 EASR7 PHIR8 PHIR9 PHIR10 WINR11 WINR12 WINR13 MALR14 MALR15 MALR16 1st 922

Supercars Championship results

Complete Bathurst 1000 results Year Team Car Co-driver Position Laps 2003 Stone Brothers Racing Ford Falcon BA Mark Noske DNF 102 2004 Larkham Motorsport Ford Falcon BA Jason Bargwanna 5th 161 2005 Larkham Motorsport Ford Falcon BA Jason Bargwanna DNF 122 2006 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon BA Jason Bright DNF 28 2007 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon BF Steven Richards 10th 161 2008 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon BF Steven Richards 4th 161 2009 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Steven Richards DNF 49 2010 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Luke Youlden 9th 161 2011 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Steven Richards 4th 161 2012 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Steven Richards 11th 161 2013 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Steven Richards 1st 161 2014 Ford Performance Racing Ford Falcon FG Steve Owen 6th 161 2015 Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Falcon FG X Steve Owen 2nd 161 2016 Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Falcon FG X Dean Canto DNF 132 2017 Prodrive Racing Australia Ford Falcon FG X Dean Canto DNF 159 2018 Tickford Racing Ford Falcon FG X Dean Canto 12th 161 2019 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Holden Commodore ZB Steven Richards 6th 161 2020 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Holden Commodore ZB James Golding 8th 161 2021 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Holden Commodore ZB Michael Caruso 16th 161 2022 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Holden Commodore ZB Michael Caruso 15th 161 2023 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6 Michael Caruso 160 2024 Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Chevrolet Camaro Mk.6 Michael Caruso 18th 161 2025 Tickford Racing Ford Mustang S650 Cam Waters 12th 161 2026 Tickford RacingFord Mustang S650 Cam Waters

The Bend 500 Results Year Team Car Co-driver Position Laps 2025 Tickford Racing Ford Mustang S650 Cam Waters 2nd 102

Complete Bathurst 12 Hour results Year Team Co-drivers Car Class Laps Overallposition Classposition 2017 BMW Team SRM Steven Richards Marco Wittmann BMW M6 GT3 AP 281 14th 7th

Complete Stock Car Brasil results