Photo: Red Bull Racing Australia

Jamie Whincup leaps to second with Race 1 win in Townsville

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Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup went from tenth to first to climb ahead of team-mate Craig Lowndes in the points standings in a frantic first race of the day at Townsville, and is now Mark Winterbottom’s closest challenge for the title.

The two cars of the Holden Racing Team had secured the front row, with James Courtney on pole position ahead of Garth Tander, while Whincup had qualified back in tenth in the Triple Eight Holden Commodore.

At the start, the three leading cars came together, with Lowndes making contact with Tander, who in turn ran into Courtney, which allowed Volvo Polestar Racing’s Scott McLaughlin through into the lead in the Volvo S60, closely followed by the Brad Jones Racing Holden of Jason Bright.

Later on the lap, Lowndes was attacking Courtney for third, but saw his race unravel when he was spun at Turn 12 by Will Davison’s Erebus Motorsport Mercedes.

Lowndes returned to the garage for repairs, rejoining the race several laps down in the aim of picking up a handful of points, but crashed out at Turn 12 which brought out the first safety car of the race.

The safety car worked in Whincup’s failure, who emerged ahead of the McLaughlin’s Volvo after the pit stops, a lead which he would not relinquish throughout the remainder of the race.

The second safety car was called with ten laps to go, after the CS Racing Ford Falcon of Jack Perkins was left buried in the wall at Turn 2 following an incident with the Nissan Altima of Todd Kelly.

The restart left second placed McLaughlin vulnerable, with the HRT Commdoore of Tander getting ahead of him shortly after the restart. The Volvo driver would lose a further three positions when the Mercedes of Will Davison muscled past him a few laps later, which also allowed the Walkinshaw Racing Holden or Nick Percat through as well as the Tekno Autosports entry of Shane Van Gisbergen.

Championship leader Mark Winterbottom had a quiet race to finish in 11th position, while Lowndes loses his second place in the standings to Whincup with a DNF.