Mark Winterbottom wins ahead of a storming Van Gisbergen

Mark Winterbottom claimed an important victory in the final Hidden Valley race of the weekend and extends his championship lead.

But the victory was only just as Shane Van Gisbergen stormed towards the Ford Performance Racing driver in the final part of the race. Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Jamie Whincup held second place with a couple of laps left but made it easy for Van Gisbergen and moved over for the Tekno Autosports driver to put pressure on Winterbottom in the lead.

Van Gisbergen tried hard but was not able to get close enough to get past, albeit getting centimeters from the back of Winterbottom in the very last corner of the last lap.

Whincup finished third ahead of David Reynolds who held the lead in the first part of the race thanks to starting on soft tyres, compared to starting on the hard tyres for Triple Eight Race Engineering drivers Whincup and Craig Lowndes.

Lowndes had a tough race and finished in 17th position after being involved in a clash with Chaz Mostert which caused a front left puncture and an unplanned pitstop for the Holden driver.

Holden Racing Team duo James Courtney and Garth Tander finished fifth and sixth ahead of the top Nissan driver in the form of James Moffat in seventh position.

Volvo Polestar Racing driver Scott McLaughlin had an anonymous race to finish eighth after dropping far back in the field in the first part of the race on hard tyres. McLaughlin clawed his way back in the final part of the race, setting the fastest lap of the race on the way.

His team mate Robert Dahlgren caused one safety car session as the throttle stuck open on his car, with the Swede going off in a spectacular way and causing a small grass fire after stopping right next to the barriers.

Rick Kelly and Russell Ingall rounded off the top ten, around 30 seconds behind the leaders.