Edwards: Both on podium possible

Ford Performance Racing Team Manager Tim Edwards believes his endurance race drivers, Dean Canto and Luke Youlden have a chance of sharing the podium with the teams full time drivers.

He said both Canto and Youlden, who will drive together for FPR at the L&H 500 at Phillip Island and the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, could “quite conceivably” pull off a podium finish at the events.

“Luke’s been on the podium at Bathurst in the past (2003); he knows his way around Bathurst in particular very well and Dean’s got the best car he’s ever had underneath him at Bathurst as well,” Edwards told Bigpond Sport.

“From the testing we have done with both the drivers, they’re going to be there or thereabouts, so they could quite conceivably be standing on the podium as well.”

Edwards hopes his two endurance drivers will share the podium with FPR’s full-time drivers Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards, who had a shattering finish to last year’s Bathurst.

“We had a good crack at it last year,” he said.

“We got within 15 laps of winning the race, but while it didn’t quite come off for us, we still came away proud of what we’d achieved.

“We’d dominated the weekend with pole position and undoubtedly we had the fastest car but it just didn’t work out for us on the day, so we’ll go back this year and have another crack.”

Edwards indicated that preparations for the upcoming endurance races were going well.

“It is a bit of a different mindset coming out of the sprint rounds and now going into the enduros,” he said.

“We’re fortunate enough we’ve got four fantastic drivers, so preparing is less of an issue for us.

“Some of the teams obviously have paid drivers or lesser standard drivers, but having four what I’d class as ‘A-grade drivers’ puts us in a very strong position going to Bathurst and Phillip Island.”

Edwards said the cars were not always totally rebuilt following sprint rounds.

“But building up to the enduros the cars are completely stripped,” he said.

“There’s probably that little bit greater attention to detail (for Phillip Island) and then even more so going into Bathurst after Phillip Island.

“There’s bits on the car you would probably say we’re over-servicing.

“Well, we’re absolutely over-servicing it, but for Bathurst, which just means so much to everybody here, that we need to.”