Jamie Whincup leads standings after strong weekend in Ipswich
Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup has assumed the lead of the 2014 V8 Supercars Championship after a strong weekend at Queensland Raceway, with two wins on Saturday in the 100km races, and a sixth place on Sunday in the 200km race, while title rival Mark Winterbottom finished far down the order after a puncture.
The five-time champion got ahead of Craig Lowndes in a close fight between the two team-mates in the first race, with Lowndes also still contention for the title after the best points haul of the weekend with three second places. The two Triple Eight cars then finished one and two in the second sprint race, thanks in part to the incident between Nissan’s Michael Caruso and Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin up front.
In race two, Whincup was slightly more anonymous, finishing in sixth position, but it was enough to overhaul the points gap between himself and Mark Winterbottom, with ‘Frosty’ finishing down in 22nd position after a left-rear puncture just over half way through the race.
“My day was relatively uneventful to be honest,” said Whincup.
“This year, more so than ever, the competition has been incredibly close between all of the teams and drivers, which has been great for the category so I’m proud to be at the front at this stage in the championship.
“To lead the championship you need a quick car and to be consistent and we’ve managed to do a good job at that over the last few rounds, but of course we still have to find some pace in some areas.
“Everyone has been competitive this year but respect has to be paid to Ford Performance Racing and the Holden Racing Team because they’ve done a great job so far and they’ll no doubt be strong at the end of the year so it will be a battle right to the end.”
Lowndes opted for an offbeat strategy in the third race, stopping on lap one to avoid any potential stacking situation should there be a safety car, which has often worked against Lowndes in previous races. The clear track allowed him to get the undercut on a number of drivers after qualifying ninth, and after the pit stop sequence was complete found himself in second position behind the HRT Commodore of James Courtney.
“We didn’t have the qualifying that we wanted today so we knew that it was going to be a tough race,” said Lowndes.
“We had a few potential strategies going into the race but we ended up being stuck in traffic so it was a great call by the team to pit after lap one. This allowed us some clean air but with two longer stints we had to make sure that we looked after the tyre life but continued to push hard to keep track position and manage the gap to Chaz Mostert.
“We had great speed in the last stint of the race and it was great to be able to bring it home to stand second on the podium.”
Ford’s Mark Winterbottom remained positive following the weekend’s result, now 15 points adrift heading to the next round at Sydney Motorsport Park.
“It was a tough day. We were trucking along well in the second stint but the puncture obviously hurt our chances,” he said. “We’ll keep fighting of course and we’re not doing too much wrong at the moment. It was a points hit but if we are quick enough we’ll make it back up there easily enough. Chaz was quick and there are positives to take away so we’ll bounce back.”
