Tander still in the hunt
The Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander has finished a very close second in the Coffee Club V8 Supercar Challenge at Indy on the Gold Coast to keep his back-to-back championship hopes very much alive.
The reigning V8 Supercar Champion added to his second place finish in Race 1 on Saturday with two further seconds in Races 2 and 3 yesterday, title rival Jamie Whincup winning both races.
Such was the closeness of the competition that the combined margin across all three races was just 1.1 seconds.
It looked as though Tander was going to reverse Saturday’s result in Race 2 on Sunday, the #1 Toll HRT Commodore blasting from the line, surviving a nudge from Whincup’s Falcon into the first chicane and leading the race until the round of pit stops. But a slight delay in the stop saw Tander caught behind backmarker Tony D’Alberto on his return to the track and allowing Whincup to take the lead, which he held to the end.
Tander again had a good start in Race 3, but Whincup held out into the critical first chicane. The #1 Toll HRT Commodore was again passed in the Race 3 pit stop, this time by fellow Holden driver Lee Holdsworth.
Holdsworth held down second for eight laps until lap 16 when he locked a brake into turn 3 and narrowly avoided crashing into the rear of Whincup’s Falcon – Tander taking back second and Winterbottom joining the two for the trio to claim a trifecta of 1, 2, 3 for the weekend’s three races.
“Our car was very good in both races today and we fought very hard all the way to the end, Said Tander.
“I had a great start in Race 2, but it all went a bit wrong in the pit stop. One of the hallmarks of our team this year has been taking advantage of the opportunities when they arise and we didn’t quite do that this weekend.
“We had a fast car in all three races and that’s encouraging going to Bahrain. We lost some points to Jamie, but made some up on Mark [Winterbottom] so it wasn’t an all bad weekend.
“The next three rounds suit all our (Whincup, Winterbottom and Tander’s) cars and I think we’re all at the top of our game, so I expect we’ll fight out those rounds and the championship like this weekend, although I hope the finishing order is different.”
For Tander’s Toll HRT team-mate Mark Skaife Sunday did not begin well, the five-time series Champion one of six drivers having 29 seconds added to their Race 1 times for shortcutting a chicane resulting in him losing five places on the grid.
On the concrete lined street circuit renowned for being so difficult to pass on, and mired back in the pack, Skaife finished this morning’s Race 2 in 16th, then moved three places further forward to 13th in the final 27 lap race.
“It was a bit of a tough weekend for us, said Skaife.
“We qualified poorly due to the red flag catching us out on Friday and the results that followed were a consequence of having a bad grid position at a circuit like this. We had good speed today and moved forward, but having been moved back on the grid overnight it made for a difficult day.”
After 11 of 14 rounds, Tander is third in series standings and has closed the gap to second placed Winterbottom to just 31 points, but trails Whincup by 106.
The 2008 V8 Supercar Championship Series now moves to the Bahrain International Circuit in Bahrain on 6-8 November.
