Whincup: “Triple Eight Commodore improvements behind first win of 2019”

Jamie Whincup has talked of how his first Supercars victory of the season came off the back of an important start, with improved car performance helping his cause on the opening lap.

After struggling to take the fight to DJR Team Penske this year, the Triple Eight driver converted a front row start to his first victory since the Sandown 500 last year, thanks to changes to the spring setups across the Supercars field.

Speaking after the race, Whincup was relieved to stand on the top step of the podium this season and heralded improvements to his Holden Commodore from Triple Eight.

“I’ve been getting a bit of stick for the past few months about my last win being a while ago”, Whincup said.

“I’ve had to remind everyone that 80% of the field haven’t had a win for a while either so I don’t know why they’re picking on me but I got a win which was certainly nice.

“It was all about the start; I think I got a good start, Scott (McLaughlin) and I had our mirrors full of Davo (Will Davison) who had an absolute rocket and was coming at us so I had one eye on him. I was always going around the outside but the acceleration of #17 on the inside was unbelievable.

“He went deep, I propped up but had enough performance in the car to be able to turn back underneath and get the spot back; I reckon three or four months ago we wouldn’t have been able to turn the thing to make the lunge so we’re slowly chipping away at performance.”

Though Triple Eight still sits second in the teams championship, Whincup’s victory is only the third this year for the Holden factory team but the seven-time champion says things could be worse for the once dominant squad.

“We’ve had some podiums and there’s a lot of other teams out there who are doing it tougher than us so I’m not going to sit here and say it’s been shocking but we haven’t had the results we’ve had previously and that’s because other teams have stepped up and are doing a very good job,” he said.

“You look back three or four years ago and we were screaming at everyone to step it up and make this sport better; you’ve got to be careful what you wish for!

“We’re not enjoying it right now because it’s just burning the midnight oil and there’s a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes to make the car faster but we’ll look back on it in ten years time and think the challenge to get the car competitive again will stick in my mind more so than when we were fairly dominant.”

Whincup will be looking to continue his rebound in form tomorrow when the Supercars field returns to the track for the final 200km race of the weekend around Queensland Raceway.