Mark Winterbottom looking to deliver Team 18 a win at Bathurst

He now races for a different team and manufacturer, but he's just as driven as ever to conquer the mountain.

He wants to do it for himself, for his family, and for the hardworking men and women of Team 18.

They've won just one race together - the opening race of the 2023 Darwin Triple Crown - and it would be enormously rewarding for him to walk back to the team after 161 laps of Mount Panorama with the Peter Brock Trophy in hand.

"It'd be huge," Frosty said.

"Winning Darwin this year was massive, just for belief in the crew and just to know on your day you can win.

"So, we come here sort of still riding off that win at Darwin knowing, if our day is good enough, we can win and we can go against the best of them.

"We're a small team, small crew, but at the same time as hungry as anyone else in pit lane."

At 42 years of age, he is the second oldest full-time driver in the Supercars paddock, a true veteran of the sport with nothing left to prove.

He's won Bathurst, he's won a championship, and his career race wins tally is sitting at 39, the ninth highest of any driver in Supercars and Australian Touring Car history.

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But even after all that success, he still arrives at Mount Panorama every October full of anticipation and nervous excitement for what the weekend could hold.

"It's funny, every time you come here it always - although I've been here 20 years now racing - it always feels like your first time when you drive in," Frosty said.

"... I don't know, there's something about this place that gives you that first-time feeling again.

"It's a really crazy place; you think you know it, and then you come in and all the nerves go, all the emotions. It's good to be back."

He is returning to the mountain with the same co-driver as in 2022, Michael Caruso, and off the back of a reasonably good result at the Sandown 500, where they placed 11^th.

While there's still a lot of work to do ahead of Sunday's Great Race, Frosty's coming into the weekend feeling confident the #18 Chevrolet Camaro can go the distance.

However, he knows from personal experience that even the most competitive cars can fall victim to the mountain.

"It doesn't matter what you drive here, things fail that shouldn't fail. Brand new components, whether it's luck or something's against you, something can go wrong," he said.

"We expect to do 1000 kilometres and [the car's] been prepped to do it, but there's going to be stories.

"There's going to be a car that fails in a good position, for sure, and there's going to be drivers that fail in good positions. That's what this race does."

He just hopes that luck will be on his side and he gets the chance to recreate his epic 2013 win with all the new people in his life.

"Ten years ago we had a really special moment here, so I'd love to relive it," he said.

"But different team, different driver I'm with, different sponsors, I've got three kids now not two - my life's changed a lot.

"Although I won 10 years ago, it doesn't mean a lot to the team I'm with now. They want to win now.

"Absolutely we want to win, and there's no better feeling than standing on the top step, but only one driver pairing gets to do it and 26 others have a story to tell."

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