Whincup wins final race at the AGP round

Jamie Whincup won the third race of the weekend at the Melbourne GP non-championship support event, after a heavy crash on the first lap caused the race to be shortened.

Garth Tander and Jason Richards had started on the front row courtesy of their result in race two, but it was Stone Brothers Racing’s Alex Davison who had a fantastic start on the second row, catapulting into the lead.

After a good recovery drive yesterday to sixth from the back, Triple Eight’s Craig Lowndes was making progress at the start of this race, passing Rick Kelly on the first lap but the two made further contact on the exit of Turn 10, with Lowndes turned sideways against the wall in front of Kelly. The Ford Falcon of Steven Johnson clipped the back of Lowndes’ car, resulting in chaos with Warren Luff and David Reynolds also taken out of the race.

Lowndes was able to drive the car back to the pits, but his race was over. The safety car was called and the wreckage from the stricken four cars was cleaned up over the next five laps.

During the safety car, everyone pitted with the exception of race leader Alex Davison, which was in effect a disastrous strategy call for the 31-year-old SBR driver.

Davison fought hard after the restart on lap 6, breaking away from the pack but with Whincup hounding him all the way, with the Triple Eight driver eventually passing on lap 14.

“Starting on softs, we knew that if there was a Safety Car we’d be in trouble,” said Davison after the race.

“But the call was made based on the lack of Safety Cars in the two previous races, and alas there was one so that ruined our day.”

Davison stopped three laps from the end which dropped him down to 20th and last place.

Whincup went on to win with more than a 10 second lead on the second placed car of Kelly Racing’s Greg Murphy, with Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander completing the podium.

“This was another event that had a lot of craziness throughout,” Whincup said.

“There’s driver wins, team wins and then there’s pure arse. This one was definitely a team win. They called the strategy perfectly and that was that.”

The teams will next head out to New Zealand for the third event of the championship at Hamilton, New Zealand on April 15th-17th.