1,000 Greatest Drivers: Mark Winterbottom

Hey, it's still winter in Australia! It counts!

Winterbottom scored his first Supercars win at the 2006 Sandown 500 on this date, which is why I elected to cover him today. He is still technically a current driver with a full-tme ride at Team 18, but he has only won one race since 2016 and has never finished better than 6th in the championship in all that time, so he hasn’t been very relevant since his championship season. Regardless, this entry is actually very current because last week it was announced that he is splitting from Team 18 and being replaced by Anton De Pasquale. It is unknown at this juncture whether he will find another ride but there is only one ride on this year’s Supercars grid that is currently unfilled, so it’s possible he might be done. It’s also possible he could retire. Nobody knows for sure, but although I have been reluctant to analyze current drivers’ careers because I might need to do a lot of rewrites, I do feel okay about this one since I do not think he will ever have a top 200-caliber season again and his career might be almost over. Admittedly, I have not updated my touring car model since May so his record and rating will likely have somewhat changed from what I have posted here. His record against his current teammate David Reynolds was 4-4 when I last updated it and now it is 10-8, so it’s possible there could be a slight change, but I think most of the pivotal moments of Winterbottom’s career have passed and it’s a good time to write this, especially with his shock departure last week and the fact that I also did two other Supercars drivers the last two days.