Photo: Red Bull Racing Australia

Jamie Whincup on the winning path again in Townsville

Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup won the third race of the weekend at Townsville, making the most out of an alternative strategy and despite a late race charge from Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander, who briefly took the lead from him.

The Triple Eight Holdens were strong in qualifying, with Jamie Whincup just one-thousandth of a second slower than pole-sitter Jason Bright’s Brad Jones Racing Holden, and Craig Lowndes actually fastest in the session, but was relegated to third following a penalty awarded to him for the contact in race one, which also included a 25 championship point penalty.

Bright held the lead at the start while Lowndes moved ahead of Whincup for second position, but the safety car was called on the first lap after an incident involving Britek’s Dale Wood and the CS Racing Ford of Jack Perkins at the first corner.

The majority of the field chose to pit at this point, leaving Whincup in the lead ahead of the other five cars which chose not to.

The pit stops were controversial for both Lowndes and Bright. Bright emerged as the lead driver of those who stopped, but was handed a drive-through penalty, as was Nissan’s Michael Caruso, for spinning the wheels during his stop.

Things were less clear-cut for Lowndes, as Triple Eight were again questioned for the second time this year for the involvement of the car controller in the pit stop, after he moved a wheel out of the way, which could have been deemed as working on the car and deserving of a penalty.

The officials decided on this occasion to review the incident after the race, but it became a moot point when Lowndes’ engine began to overheat, forcing him to pit several times during the race and losing eight laps as the team added water to the system.

Tander had taken over as the lead car in the battling second pack, and took over the lead when Whincup made his first pit stop on lap 32. Tander’s second stop came 14 laps later, with Whincup taking his final stop for a fresh set of tyres on lap 62 and rejoined behind Tander.

Inevitably, Whincup was able to catch Tander, and the pass for the lead took place on lap 70. Tander briefly was able to defend the position and get the switchback, but Whincup surged ahead at the following corner and began to pull away during the remainder of the race.

Walkinshaw Performance cars were at this point second, third and fourth, with the HRT Commodore of James Courtney third and the Walkinshaw Racing entry of Nick Percat third, but both came under threat from a late race charge from Tekno Autosports’ Shane Van Gisbergen, also on fresh tyres, who was able to pass the pair of them for the final spot on the podium.

Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom finished as the best of the Blue Oval drivers in sixth, despite losing a lot of time during the first lap pit stop after he was double stacked behind his team-mate Chaz Mostert and had rejoined back in 20th position.

As a result, Winterbottom continues to lead in the Championship standings, but now just by 96 points ahead of Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup, while after a disastrous weekend, Lowndes plummets down the order to sixth in the standings behind Fabian Coulthard, Shane Van Gisbergen and James Courtney.

The next round of the Championship is in a month’s time on August 3rd at Queensland Raceway.