Photo: Red Bull Racing Australia

Jamie Whincup takes comfortable win in Adelaide opener

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Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jamie Whincup won the first race of the 2016 V8 Supercars Championship season in Adelaide, launching into the lead at the start and was never threatened throughout the race.

Whincup won the race ahead of Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney, who leapt past two cars during the pit stop sequence, while Whincup’s new team-mate Shane van Gisbergen grabbed the final spot on the podium on his Triple Eight debut.

Scott Pye had started from pole position in the DJR Team Penske Ford Falcon FG X, but the #17 driver fell in-line behind the fast-starting Holden of Whincup at the start, running ahead of the Volvo of Scott McLaughlin with reigning champion Mark Winterbottom running fourth for Prodrive Ford.

Winterbottom was struggling with the handling of his Falcon FG X however, losing the first of many positions to James Courtney on lap eight.

Courtney pitted on lap 12, while Scott Pye and Scott McLaughlin pitted a lap later, but a slow stop for both, particularly Pye who effectively dropped out of the top ten due to an issue changing the left-rear tyre allowed Courtney’s Holden past into what would effectively be second position.

The only safety car of the race followed soon after, as Brad Jones Racing driver Tim Slade locked his brakes up at Turn 9 and was unable to rejoin the circuit, unable to put the car into the reverse as he was facing the inside wall and became the only retirement from the race.

At the restart, Whincup began to rebuild his lead ahead of Courtney, while Courtney’s HRT team-mate Garth Tander was on a charge, working his way forward from ninth, picking off the Nissan of Rick Kelly, Winterbottom’s Ford, Craig Lowndes’ Triple Eight Holden and finally Todd Kelly’s Nissan to eventually finish fifth.

Whincup crossed the line after 39 laps to score the first win of the year by almost four seconds. Whincup starts second on the grid for the next race behind Prodrive’s Chaz Mostert, who finished 16th in Race 1, which gets underway at 16:15 ACDT (6:45 CET).