Davison and Salo victorious at the Gold Coast

The Ford Performance Racing duo of Will Davison and Mika Salo have taken victory in the second race at the Gold Coast 600, crossing the line marginally in front of Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup.

The race start was cleaner than yesterday’s, though still saw a safety car called out after Peter Kox stalled on the grid. Gianni Morbidelli got stuck behind the stricken Dick Johnson Racing Falcon but managed to park his car behind his team mate without contact.

Sébastien Bourdais led the field away on the restart ahead of Marc Lieb and Will Power. The second safety car was called out on lap 13 for the displacement of the tyre bundle at Turn 1 by Richard Lyons. It was a busy race for the safety car, called out for the third time 17 laps later for debris at Turn 3.

The leaders began pitting for their first stops on lap 34. There was drama for Garry Rogers Motorsport in the pits with Caruso’s Commodore losing a wheel after its stop. As a result of the stops Mika Salo moved into the race lead ahead of Ryan Briscoe.

After the driver change stops were completed Whincup was able to move into the lead, albeit with one stop left for the Triple Eight Race Engineering Commodore. The championship leader pitted for this stop on lap 72, when a safety car was called for debris. He emerged in third with Will Davison in front of him and Tim Slade the race leader.

Davison moved into the lead on lap 80 after overtaking Slade at Turn 4, with Whincup passing him for second at the same corner a lap later. Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom was also able to overtake Slade to move into third on lap 82.

This was how they finished after 102 laps, even with another safety car intervention in between for debris, with Will Davison and Mika Salo first ahead of Jamie Whincup and Sébastien Bourdais, and Mark Winterbottom and Will Power third.