FPR at the same time had just enjoyed a breakout 2006 in which both Mark Winterbottom<\/a> and Jason Bright finished top five in the points.<\/p>\n With Bright off to drive for his own team, Britek Motorsport, Richards slotted into the #6 entry with high expectations.<\/p>\n Two victories and a further 10 top-three race results eventuated in a solid first couple of seasons with FPR before the wheels fell off.<\/p>\n That coincided with the transition from BF Falcon to the FG model, and a raft of technical changes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like, the last race of last year (i.e. 2008) I had just been on the front row and here we are first round and the first half of 2009 and we can\u2019t qualify in the top 15,\u201d Richards recalled via the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Parramatta Toyota.<\/p>\n \u201cFrosty (Winterbottom) wasn\u2019t going as well as he had done but he hadn\u2019t slipped as far as what I had.<\/p>\n \u201cThat year was particularly tough. Pretty quickly there were rumours circling that I was going to be replaced.<\/p>\n \u201cYou start to think \u2018I\u2019ve got to change the way I train, I\u2019ve got to get into the workshop more, I\u2019ve got to try to arrest this drama. It\u2019s like someone has chopped my leg off. What\u2019s going on?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIt was getting pretty stressful\u2026 I just couldn\u2019t arrest this form slump.<\/p>\n \u201cReally, it was hard. All the things that you thought were the keys to helping you be successful, however that was, it was like \u2018I\u2019ve got to change it all\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Maybe I\u2019ve woken up after Christmas and had too much pudding and now I don\u2019t know how to do it?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThen 2010, it was not really any better.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there was a change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got to a point where I think Frosty got a new car for 2010 and I was still in my 2009 car. We went up to Winton to do a test and I jumped in Frosty\u2019s car and it was different: it was turning better, the car was just different. So my engineer at the time, he suggested we change chassis.\u201d<\/p>\n That swap occurred during the two-month break between Townsville and the Phillip Island 500.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden, one change and we were back\u2026 but it was all too late,\u201d said Richards.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was probably the only time maybe where you regret being the negotiator of your own contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Richards was on the outer at FPR for 2011. He met with SBR about a long-awaited tie-up but that did not get off the ground, and was eventually left to hang up the helmet as a full-timer and settle for co-driving with Winterbottom.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point of your career, if you had have had someone in your corner because it\u2019s an emotional rollercoaster, you\u2019ve lost your confidence and you\u2019re questioning every decision you make,\u201d he elaborated.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t go into a meeting full of confidence being able to stand your ground because the results aren\u2019t on the board.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s probably the only time in my career where I felt that was a negative, doing my own deals.\u201d<\/p>\n There were plenty more good times to come though, Richards winning three more Bathurst 1000s \u2013 one with FPR and two with Triple Eight \u2013 to advance his tally to five.<\/p>\n Only his father Jim Richards<\/a>, Peter Brock<\/a>, Craig Lowndes<\/a>, Larry Perkins<\/a>, Mark Skaife<\/a> and Garth Tander<\/a> have won the Great Race on more occasions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEVEN Richards and Ford Performance Racing was the powerhouse combination formed in 2007 that ultimately fizzled out, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-817995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/undercut1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2010-Homebush-Richards-podium-Holdsworth-Gisbergen-1024x576.jpg\")
Steven Richards (right) finished second in his final race as a Supercars full-timer at Homebush 2010. Pic: an1images.com \/ Justin Deeley<\/p>\n