Whincup resumes business in race 2

Team Vodafone’s Jamie Whincup has recovered from a rough race 7 to return to victory lane for the fifth time this season in race 8 at Symmons Plains. The defending Champion put the number 1 Ford on the pole in the mornings qualifying session and held off a hard charging Will Davidson and Fabian Coulthard for the victory in an action packed race.

Will Davidson finished second and Fabian Coulthard earned his first ever podium, despite being controversially blocked in the closing laps by an out of contention Paul Dumbrell, to finished third.

Mark Winterbottom moved back into the top 10 in the Championship with a fourth place run with Lee Holdsworth rounding up the top 5.

The longest ever race to be run at Symmons Plains (84 laps) was packed with action. Many cars found the grass that surrounded the tight Tasmanian track and a number of late incidents put a period on the race.

The standout incident occurred when DJR’s James Courtney made contact with Kelly Racing’s Dale Wood, sending Courtney into the turn 7 fence extremely hard and destroying yet another Jim Beam Ford.

The same lap a number of cars found the dirt off the edge of the turn 4 Hairpin and Rick Kelly, who was running third on corrected order, backed his Holden into the turn 2 gravel after slipping on the derbies left from Courtney’s wrecked Falcon.

After the restart, Jason Richards was tagged at the turn 4 hairpin, parking the car on the inside embankment, lifting the rear wheels off the ground and forcing anther safety car Period.

Many other drivers found trouble at the 2.4 kilometre track. Greg Murphy, who qualified third, was irate after a number of altercations with the two FPR cars, including being drilled from behind by Steven Richards. Murph’s car struggled home in 22nd, and had some choice comments for the FPR duo.

“They must be desperate because they are getting their arse kicked by everyone else.” He said.

“They wouldn’t stop hitting me, I gave them room but they couldn’t pass, so I guess they tried to knock me out of the way”. He continued. “The driving standards out there today were bloody shit”.

Steven Richards’s car looked like it had run the feature Pro Stock race at Parramatta. The beat up Castrol Ford ended the day 15th.

Race 7 winner, Garth Tander, Also found trouble. After pitting early to avoid congestion, he was forced to pit a few laps latter to replace a deflating left rear tyre, losing a lap in the process. However, Holden’s number 1 was able to use the late race safety cars to recover to finish 12th.

Steven Johnson was penalised after a tyre rolled from his pit box and was subsequently recovered by his father Dick, who was on his way from the pit wall to the team garage at the time. The 17 machine finished 18th.

Outside pole sitter, Todd Kelly, took the lead early in the race, but was forced out when the Holden power-plant expired on lap 42.

Teammate and younger brother Rick’s, day got worse after his spin when he made contact with a backmarker on a restart, breaking the steering arm and forcing him out of the event on lap 79.

Craig Lowndes battled traffic all day and was never really able to mount a challenge. He ended up 11th but has moved to 10th.

On the other side of the coin, Jason Bright posted his first top 10 of the year and Jason Bargwanna collected his best result of the year with an 8th place finish.

Michael Patrizi picked up his fist ever top 10 in the V8 Supercar championship, rounding off a great weekend for Wilson Security Racing and Super-Cheap Auto Racing’s, Tim Slade, posted his best ever result in 9th, but he has been moved to 14th for reasons yet unknown to Touring Car Times.

Whincup said the ‘Sprint’ tyre made today’s 84-lap race interesting as he battled for the lead with Toll Holden Racing Team’s Will Davision and Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom, before both drivers had late-race incidents in the action-packed thriller.

“The soft tyre has really smartened things up; traditionally we have had some pretty boring races down here where we are all just circulating,” he said.

“Then it was all pretty crazy. Mark (Winterbottom) was leading for a while and then he had an incident and Will (Davison) was leading and then he had an incident. I had a massive scare down at turn two when I locked a front wheel… (but) every race win has its own incident like that.”

He said today’s win was certainly no picnic.

“We were pushing hard, there was nothing left to give; I was on the limit for 84 laps,” he admitted.

Whincup said he was already thinking about a good result in the main race today once it became obvious that he was struggling in yesterday’s (Saturdays) 42-lap sprint race.

“I conserved a lot more than most… everyone pretty much ran their Sprint tyre all of yesterday’s race; I only used mine for half of yesterday’s race; that gave me a little bit of a tyre advantage (today).”

Davison finished second and said he was happy just to get some good Championship points.

“I don’t really want to play the (Championship) points game, but you have to be realistic as well. We haven’t really had the ideal qualifying in the last couple of rounds, but we have been able to fight back (in the races) with a great car,” he said.

“We have really kept the points tally ticking over.”

The Toll HRT driver, who sits second in the Championship, said he had a tough race and was disappointed to lose track position late in the race.

“We had a great qualifying session this morning and then we had a strong race like I knew we would,” he said.

“It was a very tough race there with Jamie (Whincup). It was hard to know what was going on. There was traffic everywhere and lapped cars everywhere… it was frustrating when I saw him come out (in front of me). It was a race to the flag. I had a car that was capable of challenging him, but in the end it just came down to track position.”

The series will head to the tropical north for races 9 and 10 in three weeks at Hidden Valley Raceway. Stay tuned to TouringCarTimes for more news and results.