Tander in Box Seat at Hamilton

Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander has gone back-to-back in Hamilton beating home Ford Performance Racing’s Steve Richards by less than a second to take the win in race two.

Keeping Ford in the mix, James Courtney rounded out the top three a further four seconds back.

There were no repeats of yesterday’s first lap antics with Tander getting away cleanly from Rick Kelly and Steve Richards, and all other drivers keeping level heads and settling into formation before compulsory pit stops kicked in on lap six.

Pit lane threw up some issues for Rick Kelly who lost track position after a dropped wheel nut held him up. It was also a double whammy for Jim Beam Racing with a back-to-back pit stop for Will Davison and Steve Johnson going wrong when Davison’s engine died in the bay, leaving the pit crew to push him out of the way and make way for Johnson. Davison was unable to restart the car and the crew was then forced to change Johnson’s tyres and then push Davison further out of the way to free the #17 Falcon.

Further adding to the unusual incidents for the race, lap 24 saw the safety car on track when Todd Kelly’s JDR Commodore dropped a muffler onto the track after impacting with the bundles through the chicane.

The restart sparked another incident going into turn one when Andrew Thompson, Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife came together causing extensive damage to Thompson and Skaife’s cars. The incident effectively ended Thompson’s race, despite him limping on for a few laps.

From there it was a ten-lap sprint to the finish with a fantastic battle between the first ten cars. Fabian Coulthard, continuing his form from race one, put a big move for position eight on Mark Winterbottom, which started a passing trend. Rick Kelly was the big loser in the restart losing position to Lee Holdsworth and Cameron McConville and slipping from fourth to sixth after making up the places he lost during his pit stop. Frosty maintained the fight with Coulthard before eventually reclaining the position with just two laps to go.

Young Kiwi Shane Van Gisbergen, who moved from 21st to 12th, and even led for three laps during the race, was forced to pit with mechanical issues before eventually finishing six laps down in 26th.

It was also a great race for rookies Michael Caruso and Tony D’Alberto with the GRM driver taking 9th position and D’Alberto of Rod Nash Racing finishing in 11th.

The race three grid will see Tander and Richards on the front row, followed by Courtney, Holdsworth, McConville, Rick Kelly, Winterbotton, Couthard, Caruso and Jason Richards making up the top 10.