Photo: Team Vodafone

Third straight win for Craig Lowndes

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Craig Lowndes claimed his third straight victory and Triple Eight’s seventh straight victory in the first race of the weekend at Eastern Creek. The Holden driver won the race 1.4 seconds ahead of top Ford driver Mark Winterbottom who also claimed the lead of the championship as Lowndes’ team mate Jamie Whincup had a troublesome race.

Whincup started from pole, but made a poor getaway and dropped seven positions. The Triple Eight driver fought his way back up through the field and was close to a podium finish, only to get a puncture in the final couple of laps and dropped down to 23rd position.

Will Davison made it two FPR Fords in the top three in third position ahead of Garth Tander and Russell Ingall. James Courney beat Shane van Gisbergen to sixth.

Michael Caruso, Jonathon Webb and Jason Bright rounded off the top ten.

Winterbottom heads the points on 2108 points, with Whincup on 2088 and Davison on 2005. Lowndes victory brought him up to fourth position on 1946 points with one race still to go this weekend at Eastern Creek.