Whincup extends lead with Abu Dhabi hat-trick

Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup won the third race of the weekend at Abu Dhabi to complete a perfect weekend, and extends his points lead to 296 over Mark Winterbottom going into the final two races.

For the third time this weekend, despite Ford Performance Racing’s Will Davison having secured pole position for all three races, Whincup was able to get ahead of the Ford driver at the start and led the way, as Stone Brothers Racing’s Tim Slade moved up into second place ahead of Davison.

On the second lap, Tekno Autosport’s Jonathon Webb spun Jason Bright’s Brad Jones Racing Commodore around, which was collected by Kelly Racing’s Karl Reindler, which caught fire after his fuel cell was broken when Dean Fiore’s DJR Ford ran into the back of him .The car was left to burn in the middle of the circuit, whilst Reindler was able to escape uninjured as the safety car was called.

The race was restarted on lap six, leaving a seven lap sprint to the end. Webb was given a drive-through for the contact with Bright which started the whole incident.

On lap nine, FPR’s Winterbottom passed Moffat’s DJR Ford for fifth which is where he went on to finish, whilst Davison was able to pass Slade on the following lap for second place.

Whincup won the race and took the 100th victory in V8 Supercars for the Holden Commodore VE model. Whincup also extends his lead in the championship to 296 points over Mark Winterbottom, with 600 remaining.

Whincup’s Triple Eight team-mate Craig Lowndes lost further ground in the points battle, finishing just outside the top ten in 11th place.

The next round of the championship is at Winton in two weeks’ time.