Whincup leads after eventful second hour at Bathurst

Triple Eight Racing Engineering’s Jamie Whincup surged into a comfortable lead while last year’s winners Garth Tander and Nick Percat hit trouble after the second hour of the 2012 Bathurst 1000.

Following the first safety car which saw the majority of the field pit and change drivers, John McIntyre began the second hour of the race in the lead but he was unable to relax. The Triple Eight Holden of Warren Luff and Craig Lowndes soon loomed large in the Ford’s mirrors with just 1.5 seconds splitting the pair.

While Luff had been on a charge, McIntyre’s team mate Steven Richards, partnering Mark Winterbottom, made a mistake at The Chase allowing Andrew Thompson through in the Stone Brothers Racing Ford. Michael Caruso then took advantage of the recovering Ford, slipping past at Hell corner at the start of the next lap.

At the front Luke Youlden in the SBR car stayed in pursuit of Luff in third with Dean Canto in fourth, Rick Kelly in fifth and last year’s winner Nick Percat in sixth. The top six stayed like this until lap 32 when Canto in the FPR Bottle-O machine passed Youlden for third with a slick move coming into Murray’s. Race favourite Paul Dumbrell came into the pits to hand the car over to Jamie Whincup for his first stint. His front left tyre suffered damage.

The lead changed hands for the first time as the race entered lap 35 when leader McIntyre pitted handing the advantage to Luff. McIntyre rejoined the race in 26th after a lengthy stop but crucially in front of Whincup. The pit-lane echoed to the sound of V8s again when Luff pitted to hand over to Lowndes, handing the lead to Canto. He was joined in the pits by Rick Kelly.

There was drama for HRT and 2011 winner as Percat hit the wall just before the Dipper. Luckily he managed to nurse his car back to the pits, rejoining 13 laps later sending the number 2 car to last. Meanwhile Whincup swooped passed McIntyre at the cutting for the net lead. Percat’s incident brought out the safety car to clear debris from the track. This sparked a flurry of action in the pits with the majority of the field taking advantage of the opportunity. Whincup moved into the lead with McIntyre in hot pursuit.

As the safety car peeled off racing resumed with Whincup leading from McIntyre, Canto, Youlden and Lowndes, who is now back in the action after early tyre problems. Whincup began to open up a healthy lead while there was plenty of action behind with queue of cars forming behind McIntyre. Canto had a look at passing him into the Cutting but McIntyre held firm. Lowndes passed Youlden at the Chase with Greg Ritter and the Brad Jones Racing car of Andrew Jones hunting down McIntyre.

Whincup ended the second hour with an 8.7 second lead from FPR’s McIntyre, Canto and the hard charging Lowndes.