Photo: PRA

Mark Winterbottom claims championship lead with Winton victory

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Prodrive Racing Australia driver Mark Winterbottom has claimed the V8 Supercars championship lead after winning the third race of the weekend at Winton.

It was Winterbottom’s team-mate Chaz Mostert that started from pole and had the lead into the first corner. Not long into the race and Craig Lowndes made the most of his soft tyres and took the lead.

Mostert was back in the lead later in the race but made a mistake and spun off into the tyre wall after putting his rear tyres outside of the track and brought the safety car out. The Ford driver was able to resume the race but three laps down on the leaders.

Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Lowndes took back the lead of the race but came under pressure from Winterbottom and Fabian Coulthard as the race neared the end. Winterbottom and Coulthard made their way past and at one point it looked as Coulthard was about to challenge for the lead.

The Brad Jones Racing driver was right behind Winterbottom with about ten laps left, but could not get ahead and had to settle for second place, two seconds behind.

Lowndes finished third, with Nissan Motorsport driver Michael Caruso making a strong charge to fourth position. Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander claimed fifth position with David Reynolds in sixth and James Courtney in seventh.

DJR Team Penske driver Scott Pye was involved in the top fight, but dropped towards the end of the race to finish eighth ahead of Volvo Polestar Racing driver Scott McLaughlin in ninth. Reigning champion Jamie Whincup climbed to tenth position after a tough race from 22nd on the grid.

V8 Supercars resumes on June 19-21st with the Darwin SuperSprint.