Whincup hails team-work from Triple Eight crew in practice crash to round win turnaround

Darwin Triple Crown winner Jamie Whincup has praised his Triple Eight squad after the seven-time Supercars champion took his 120th win and the round victory at Hidden Valley Raceway on Sunday.

Coming in to the round in second in the driver’s championship, it looked like a tough three races for Whincup after he had a crash in Saturday’s second practice session, giving himself and the Triple Eight team a big mountain to climb to repair the #88 Holden Commodore before qualifying.

After getting on the tools and fighting back to second on the grid, Whincup ended up 17th after a penalty through the race but further bounced back on Sunday to record a second and first placing across the two races.

His 228 points across the weekend put him equal on points with DJR Team Penske’s Fabian Coulthard as Scott McLaughlin applied the blowtorch to the back of the Commodore through the third race, also chasing the round win but falling short.

Having nearly been held up by Coulthard entering his pit bay in the final race, Whincup says he’s proud of his team for the efforts over the weekend to bounce back from his mistake in practice.

“Obviously we’re absolutely wrapped that we grounded out all weekend and got a quick car and the win,” he said to the Supercars broadcast team post-race.

“We’re pretty proud that we didn’t get baulked by car #12 (Coulthard) in the pits there as well; we had a crack and well done to (DJR) Team Penske for trying to get him in the way but we just didn’t allow it.

“We put ourselves in that hard position by me spearing off and putting it in the fence, we had our work cut out all weekend, but the winner out of the weekend is Cauchi (Whincup’s engineer).

“He chipped away at the car setup to maximise the car’s potential and came away with a round win which is fantastic.

“I think we made some mistakes at Sydney Motorsport Park which we recognised but this is a different circuit. This Darwin track doesn’t get a huge amount of use so the actual surface is really good, high grip and the degradation is quite low; it’s a different kettle of fish.”

The start of race two saw McLaughlin convert pole to the lead by Turn 1 but an undercut in the pit stops from Whincup put him in front for the second stint, a position where he stayed until the end of the race.

“I wasn’t sure what tyres he (McLaughlin) was on to start with but for race one we all had new tyres but for the second race I had two bad ones on the rear, so I knew it was pretty dodgy.

“I gave the clutch a lot more slip than I normally would, didn’t get off the line too well and thought I’d have to protect second.

“That race felt like 2017 and 2018 when we were going head-to-head, unfortunately we haven’t given them much of a run recently but it’s great to have some performance and then take the fight to them. It was a good, old fashioned, ding-dong race.”

Now trailing McLaughlin by just 101 points, Whincup will be looking to repeat this round’s success when the field returns to Darwin next weekend for back-to-back rounds in the Top End.