Photo: PRA

Title battle between Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes continues

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The 2015 V8 Supercars title battle continues as Craig Lowndes further reduced the gap to championship leader Mark Winterbottom with two victories at Phillip Island.

“We had to knuckle down, focus and believe the car would be fast enough. We’re still fighting, there’s still the teams and the drivers championship up for grabs,” said Lowndes.

The Ford driver headed to the race weekend with a 240-point lead over Lowndes but left Phillip Island with it reduced to 179 points. Winterbottom was nonetheless pleased with the results as he was able to bounce back from an engine change on Saturday.

”I walk away proud and I still feel confident. I’m super happy with the team. We had a lot of issues this weekend and to repair it and get the engine in and put it on pole today it’s not that bad so finishing fourth is not as good as we expect from the team after this year but when you’re not quick enough you have to do what you can do,” said Winterbottom.

While Winterbottom secured two fourth place finishes, Lowndes claimed two victories and a third place.

“What a cracking day! We qualified better than we did yesterday which we thought was going to hold us in good stead for the race. I had a terrible start, but the guys did a fantastic job with the pit stops. We had to believe that the car was going to be fast enough throughout the race which it was. We made the car nicer today as a race car than we did yesterday. We had the speed in the end so it’s been a fantastic day,” said Lowndes.

Winterbottom looked set for a podium finish in the final race but lost a spot to Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Jamie Whincup on the last lap, stealing valuable points.

”I tried to hold on for third but he (Whincup) had a go and being seven tenths a lap slower I was just trying to hold on. We had a go and finished fourth,” said Winterbottom.

Lowndes has gained on Winterbottom since Bathurst but Prodrive Racing Australia team principal Tim Edwards is optimistic with just one race weekend remaining.

”We’re still leading the championship which is the main thing to take from this weekend. We’ve got a bit of work to do across the four cars before we go to Sydney to hopefully find a bit more speed but overall this weekend was pretty good,” said Edwards.

V8 Supercars resumes for the season finale in two weeks at the Homebush Street Circuit in Sydney.