Jamie Whincup and James Courtney punished for collisions

Although both winners over the weekend, both Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup and Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney received 25 point penalties after incidents in the second and third races at Adelaide Parklands Raceway this weekend.

Reigning champion Whincup had looked set to start the season in typical dominant form. The 31-year-old was comfortably leading the third and final race of the weekend, until he was given a drive-through penalty after it was deemed his car controller had touched the car during his final pit-stop while assessing damage sustained earlier after hitting the tyre bundle at the chicane.

The team’s protest to the stewards was unsuccessful, and Whincup was forced to serve his penalty. The four-time champion then collided with Michael Caruso’s Nissan Altima at Turn 9 while trying to regain ground. The Nissan’s right-rear suspension was damaged, as was the front-left suspension on Whincup’s Holden Commodore, and both returned to the pits to retire.

Whincup immediately accepted the blame for the incident, for which he received a 25 point penalty in the Drivers’ Championship.

“After the drive through I was just trying to make up spots and unfortunately when you’re trying to make up spots you’re way out of your comfort zone and you’re forced into difficult situations,” said Whincup.

“We’ve got good car speed which is a silver lining but we’re down the order and going to have to start by fighting our way up.”

Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney received his penalty for an incident in race two, when he clambered into both Scott Pye’s Dick Johnson Racing Ford Falcon and Lee Holdsworths’s Erebus Mercedes simultaneously, ripping the left-side door off of his Holden Commodore in the process.

The 33-year-old made amends for the error in race three, taking his first win since Winton last year and the first with HRT’s new team manager Adrian Burgess, who has been reunited with Courtney for the first time since 2010 when they won the Drivers’ title together at Dick Johnson Racing.

After Adelaide, Triple Eight’s Craig Lowndes leads the Drivers’ Championship ahead of Brad Jones Racing’s Fabian Coulthard by 52 points.

Rick Kelly is the best placed of the Nissan drivers after a consistent weekend in fourth, Mark Winterbottom the best placed of the Ford contingent in sixth, with Scott McLaughlin’s Volvo 15th and Mercedes driver Lee Holdsworth 18th.