Mark Winterbottom extends lead with seventh win of 2015
Mark Winterbottom claimed a superior seventh victory of the 2015 V8 Supercars season in the first race of the weekend at Queensland Raceway to extend his championship lead. Scott McLaughlin scored his first podium finish of the season in second place for Volvo Polestar Racing.
Winterbottom started from second place and was in control from corner one after getting past Prodrive Racing Australia team mate Chaz Mostert, extending the gap to win by close to five seconds.
McLaughlin started fourth in his Volvo S60 but got past Mostert and Andre Heimgartner early on.
As McLaughlin had made his way past, a big scrap developed between Mostert and Shane Van Gisbergen. The both made contact several times and had a battle that lasted all the way to the finishing flag.
The fight culminated on the penultimate lap, seeing Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Craig Lowndes benefiting on the action to get past both of them to finish third. Van Gisbergen claimed fourth, with Mostert finishing fifth despite seeming to have the pace on the Tekno Autosports driver.
James Courtney claimed sixth position for Holden Racing Team with David Reynolds finishing seventh and James Moffatt eighth for Nissan Motorsport. Reigning champion Jamie Whincup came home in ninth, with Erebus Motorsport driver Will Davison claiming the final top ten spot.
Heimgartner lost out on a strong third place on the grid. The Superblack Racing driver was involved in the top fight, but got caught out in the action of the first part of the race, dropping down to finish 15th in the end.
The race had two retirements, with Jason Bright retiring after making contact with David Wall on the opening lap and Scott Pye with a broken oil cooler tank.
