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HRT steals Phillip Island 500 win

Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander and Will Davison have stolen victory with a last-lap change of lead in the L&H 500 at Phillip Island, giving Holden Racing Team back-to-back victories in the event

The HRT duo had spent most of the race in second place, just behind the Team Vodafone car of Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup. It had been a fantastic duel between the two, the cars separated by no more than a couple of seconds throughout the race.

Tander had earlier taken the lead on lap 87 after a lapped car baulked Lowndes, before Lowndes retook the lead 11 laps later and looked set to take victory.

But a right front tyre started to deflate over the final three laps and meant that Lowndes was helpless when Tander caught him halfway through the lap, handing the HRT car victory.

Behind them, the Ford Performance Racing Falcon of Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom took third, just a couple of seconds ahead of Jim Beam's James Courtney and Steven Johnson, both cars running in the top five throughout the race.

Problems for the Kelly brothers cost them a chance of beating both of them, as fixing a seat belt problem apparently cost Todd Kelly quite a few seconds during his stint in the middle of the race. Regardless, they were still quick enough to finish fifth ahead of the second Jim Beam car of Jonathon Webb and Warren Luff.

Completing the top ten were Supercheap's Russell Ingall and Tim Slade, Craig Baird and Paul Dumbrell in the second HRT car, Dean Canto and Luke Youlden in the second FPR car and Alex Davison and Shane van Gisbergen who recovered well after suffering a flat right front tyre earlier in the race.

The race was relatively incident-free apart, but the safety car made two appearances early in the race. The first came when Fabian Coulthard had a terminal engine failure in the opening laps of the race, dropping oil on the circuit.

The second came out when Cameron McConville and Steve Owen made contact heading into Doohan Corner, the Team BOC car of McConville suffering broken front left suspension and going through the gravel, tarmac runoff and grass, crossing the track after the exit of Southern Loop, luckily not hitting other cars as it did so.

Remarkably, the other car in the Brad Jones team was involved in an almost identical incident with Lee Holdsworth just over ten laps later, except with positions reversed, this time the loser being the car of Holdsworth, who managed to slow down enough to rejoin the track in a asfe manner, but again with broken front left suspension.

The last-lap change of lead means that the points positions have changed very little at the top, even less so than if the result had remained as it was. Whincup's lead reduces by 12 points to 171, while Tander and Lowndes are now separated by 13 points instead of 1 as it was before the weekend started, but both remain well off the leading duo's pace.

Pos  Drivers                   Make                  Time
 1.  W Davison/G Tander        Holden Commodore VE   3:09:47.8436
 2.  Lowndes/Whincup           Ford Falcon FG        +     2.6729
 3.  S Richards/Winterbottom   Ford Falcon FG        +    10.3395
 4.  Courtney/Johnson          Ford Falcon FG        +    13.3435
 5.  R Kelly/T Kelly           Holden Commodore VE   +    52.0102
 6.  Luff/Webb                 Ford Falcon FG        +    59.8844
 7.  Ingall/Slade              Holden Commodore VE   +  1:08.5128
 8.  Baird/Dumbrell            Holden Commodore VE   +  1:11.3889
 9.  Canto/Youlden             Ford Falcon FG        +  1:14.9051
10.  A Davison/van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon FG        +  1:17.2577
11.  Murphy/Skaife             Holden Commodore VE   +  1:17.9855
12.  Owen/Price                Holden Commodore VE   +     1 lap
13.  Besnard/Ritter            Holden Commodore VE   +     1 lap
14.  Perkins/Wood              Holden Commodore VE   +     1 lap
15.  D'Alberto/Thompson        Holden Commodore VE   +     1 lap
16.  Priaulx/Reynolds          Holden Commodore VE   +     1 lap
17.  Gaunt/McIntyre            Ford Falcon FG        +     1 lap
18.  Collins/Pretty            Holden Commodore VE   +     2 laps
19.  L Tander/Wall             Ford Falcon BF        +     2 laps
20.  Fisher/Sieders            Ford Falcon BF        +     2 laps
21.  Simonsen/Thompson         Ford Falcon FG        +     2 laps
22.  McNally/Ricciardello      Holden Commodore VE   +    12 laps
23.  Assaillit/Lowe            Ford Falcon BF        +    20 laps
24.  Douglas/Walter            Holden Commodore VE   +    21 laps

Not classified/retirements:

     Drivers                   Make                  Laps
     Bright/Reindler           Ford Falcon FG         92
     A Jones/B Jones           Holden Commodore VE    80
     O Kelly/Morris            Holden Commodore VE    62
     Bargwanna/Noske           Holden Commodore VE    46
     Caruso/Holdsworth         Holden Commodore VE    31
     McConville/J Richards     Holden Commodore VE    20
     Coulthard/Patrizi         Ford Falcon FG          4
     Fiore/Bayliss             Holden Commodore VE     0

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