Craig Lowndes wins the Bathurst 1000 as cramp hits David Reynolds
Craig Lowndes with co-driver Steven Richards won the 2018 Bathurst 1000 as David Reynolds, who held the lead for the majority of the race, was hit with cramp in the closing stages of the race.
“It means a lot. It’s almost like ‘06 back again. We’ve had trouble all weekend with the steering and these guys have done a hell of a job to pull it all together,” said Lowndes to supercars.com.
“I didn’t have any cool suit or air in my helmet the last three stints, so I’m a little tired, but it’s a credit to these guys (the team). We didn’t have quite the speed at the beginning of the race, but we were hoping the track would come to it and it did.”
Reynolds with co-driver Luke Youlden had been strong all weekend but was hit with disaster as the race neared its end when the Erebus Motorsport driver had to fight a leg cramp.
Things got even worse in one of their final stops when Reynolds was hit with a drive through penalty for spinning his rear wheels, slipping his foot of the clutch due to the leg cramp, dropping the duo down the order to finish 13th.
Lowndes got past Reynolds prior to that (lap 135) and was on his own from that. Walkinshaw Andretti United driver Scott Pye with co-driver Warren Luff was his closest competitor but was well behind, finishing second with a margin of 6.3 seconds.
Pye’s podium finish was his second consecutive Bathurst 1000 podium and performed a strong race, climbing from 18th on the grid.
DJR Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin claimed the final podium spot with co-driver Alexandre Prémat, finishing 9.4 seconds behind race winner Lowndes.
Tickford Racing driver Chaz Mostert came home in fourth position with championship leader Shane van Gisbergen crossing the line in fifth position for Triple Eight Race Engineering.
There was plenty of drama for Mostert who clashed with his team-mate David Russell at Forest’s Elbow, sending Russell, who is co-driver to Cameron Waters, into the wall and later into the pits for lengthy repairs.
The repairs dropped them to finish 23rd but the stewards decided to take no action on the incident.
Disaster also struck Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Jamie Whincup with co-driver Paul Dumbrell. The duo were involved in the top fight until lap 45 when the front-right wheel came off the #1 Holden at turn one, forcing Dumbrell to drive a full lap on three wheels. This dropped them a lap down on the leaders but a late safety car meant that they were able to return to the same lap as the leaders and later fight their way to finish tenth.
One of the few retirements in the race was the Walkinshaw Andretti United duo of James Courtney and Jack Perkins due to an engine failure on lap 33.
Van Gisbergen is still in the lead of the championship but with McLaughlin closing the gap to trail the Holden rival by 19 points with three race weekends left of the 2018 season.
The next race is the Gold Coast 600 on October 20-21st.
