Courtney extends lead despite handling problem

Jim Beam Racing left Phillip Island with generally low key results, but are happy to leave with an extended lead in the championship for driver James Courtney thanks to Whincup’s race woes.

Courtney’s co-driver Warren Luff started the car, and reported that the car was very unstable off of the line.

The team made changes to the car during the first scheduled stop, but that caused additional handing issues at the rear, but still managed to get the car up to fifth before handing the car over to Courtney on lap 48.

Courtney locked the brakes 15 laps later, and the team had to adopt a new strategy to incorporate an earlier stop to change tyres – the car going on to finish 12th.

“It was the worst the car has been,” said Courtney.

“When everything is working together, this car is a rocket.

“But this weekend, we just couldn’t get it right. The car was more like a firecracker”.

Team mate Steven Johnson, paired with Marcus Marshall had a horrible race, spun out early on and running as low as 26th. Johnson saw all the action, but a steady run from Marshall helped recover the car to 16th by the end of the race.

With Whincup/Owen classified 29th, Courtney extends his championship lead to 179 points over the TeamVodafone driver, whilst Winterbottom’s second place finish now puts him just 239 points behind in the standings.