Whincup scores comfortable win

After Ford only winning one championship race out of 24 in New Zealand prior to this weekend and Whincup failing to even start a race last year at Hamilton after an incident involving Todd Kelly in qualifying ended his weekend early, it was the best possible result for both of them.

Whincup remained in fourth during the early laps of the race just behind the leading trio but made his pitstop early to get some clear track. When the rest of the field had pitted, Whincup was over seven seconds and even a safety car period at two-thirds distance made little difference.

Second was a good result for Jim Beam's James Courtney after his dramas in the first three races of the year, running in third in the early laps before moving up to second during the pitstops.

Meanwhile his team-mate Steven Johnson, who led the opening 24 laps of the 59-lap race, lost ground during the stops and just held on to third ahead of Lee Holdsworth. Fabian Coulthard just held on for sixth ahead of Holdsworth's team-mate Michael Caruso.

After their poor grid positions, the Holden Racing Team duo of Will Davison and Garth Tander did well to finish in seventh and ninth respectively, making some ground through the pitstops as well as passing cars on the track in the closing laps of the race.

After a good result in qualifying this morning, Ford Performance Racing's Steven Richards looked set for a top-five result, but a mistake while running fifth on lap 45 saw him drop down to finish outside the top-ten in 12th place.

His team-mate Mark Winterbottom fared even worse, failing to make it past lap one after being involved in contact at turn one at the start.

A couple of other high-profile drivers that failed to finish were Whincup's team-mate Craig Lowndes, who went out on lap 50 while running sixth after clouting the chicane and breaking his left front suspension, and Russell Ingall who was tenth with four laps remaining when he suffered an apparent engine failure.

With four wins in four races, Whincup has the perfect score of 600 points. Second, 102 points behind him is Garry Rogers driver Lee Holdsworth, with HRT's Will Davison 15 points behind Holdsworth and Jim Beam's Steven Johnson 21 behind his former team-mate Davison.

Pos  Driver                Make     Time
 1.  Jamie Whincup         Ford     1:27:34.7215
 2.  James Courtney        Ford     +     6.0319
 3.  Steven Johnson        Ford     +     8.5539
 4.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden   +     9.2412
 5.  Fabian Coulthard      Ford     +    11.6819
 6.  Michael Caruso        Holden   +    12.2705
 7.  Will Davison          Holden   +    18.0546
 8.  Greg Murphy           Holden   +    21.3306
 9.  Garth Tander          Holden   +    21.8858
10.  Alex Davison          Ford     +    28.5822
11.  David Reynolds        Holden   +    29.4276
12.  Steven Richards       Ford     +    30.6357
13.  Michael Patrizi       Ford     +    32.1047
14.  Rick Kelly            Holden   +    33.1425
15.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford     +    48.5413
16.  Dale Wood             Holden   +    49.0531
17.  Jack Perkins          Holden   +  1:06.8810
18.  Jason Bright          Ford     +     1 lap
19.  Cameron McConville    Holden   +     1 lap
20.  Dean Fiore            Holden   +     1 lap
21.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden   +     4 laps
22.  Jason Richards        Holden   +     6 laps
23.  Paul Dumbrell         Holden   +     6 laps
24.  Todd Kelly            Holden   +    13 laps

Not classified/retirements:

     Driver                Make     Laps
     Russell Ingall        Holden    57
     Craig Lowndes         Ford      49
     Marcus Marshall       Ford      14
     Jason Bargwanna       Holden    11
     Mark Winterbottom     Ford       0