Lowndes comes back to win race 3

Lowndes stayed out longer than most before making his compulsory pit stop, with James Courtney the only contender for the win ahead of him after his stop. Lowndes dispatched him two laps later to take a comfortable win by nearly seven seconds.

Courtney was second, while race one and two winner Mark Winterbottom was unable to show the pace he had earlier in the weekend, having to settle for third position.

Toll HSV's Garth Tander finished fourth, a couple seconds ahead of the Jim Beam dup of Will Davison and Steven Johnson, with Russell Ingall in seventh, and Rick Kelly in eighth.

For the round overall, Mark Winterbottom took his maiden round win, with James Courtney in second and Steven Johnson third.

The start saw Winterbottom passed into turn one by Courtney and Will Davison, with Lowndes and Steven Johnson behind him in fourth and fifth. It was better than the news was for Mark Skaife, who stalled and left the grid in last place.

The two Toll HSV cars made contact again in race three, Tander driving across the front of and clipping Rick Kelly's car on lap 2 entering turn four.

On lap 3 Steven Richards, running in sixth, was issued a mechanical black flag to head to the pits to repair a lightly-damaged rear bumper, which occurred when Dean Canto hit the back of him a couple of times exiting turn one on lap one.

At the front, the top four ran nose-to-tail. Lap five saw a reshuffling of the order as Winterbottom took second from Davison into turn one. Two laps later, the top three pitted, Winterbottom losing a position to Davison as traffic heading down the pit lane delayed his exit.

Richards had taken his compulsory stop a lap earlier, on lap 6, and repaired the damage, but for the Stewards this was too late. For taking too long to observe the earlier ruling, Richards was given a stop-go penalty of fifteen seconds.

Had he pitted to take on repairs when requested, he would still have had to head down pit lane and made his compulsory stop separately, so in the overall scheme of things it made little (if any) difference to his race result of 25th, having run sixth in the early laps of the race.

Jamie Whincup's day was also about to get much worse, penalised for an unsafe release from pit bay as he squeezed in front of Dean Canto without contact (thanks to Canto making room) but clipped the exit cone at the end of pit lane, dropping him to 27th after the penalty, recovering to 16th by race's end.

His teammate was making hay at the front of the field, extending his margin as he continued to stay out. Further down the order, Winterbottom regained on lap 11 the place he'd lost to Davison during the pit stops.

The 'war' between Paul Morris and Todd Kelly, which began at the previous round and resumed in race two at Bahrain, continued in race three. The two managed to run close together for a couple of laps before it sparked off again.

Todd Kelly had got alongside Morris through turn seven, but on the exit he shouldered Morris off the track through the gravel and onto the dusty tarmac runoff. As Morris rejoined the track, Morris ran into the back of Kelly, spinning him off the track.

Having been unable to make a decision in a clear-cut situation in race two until after the race finished, the Stewards this time took just a couple of laps to apply a penalty for reckless driving in an incident which at the very least involved mitigating circumstances or possible doubt.

Morris was given a 10 second stop-go penalty for his contact with Kelly, which came after he was knocked off the track by Kelly. Whether he was completely in control when he returned to the circuit didn't appeared to be 100% clear either.

Kelly didn't escape unscathed either, penalised 10 points for careless driving for putting Morris off the track in the first place, the penalty being imposed after the race had concluded, Kelly having earlier retired his car from the race.

On lap 14 Lowndes finally made his stop, with James Courtney his only challenger for the win just ahead of him. A lap later and they were as one, Lowndes making the move on the next lap and pulling away.

Further down the top ten Garth Tander was continuing to make up places. On lap 22 he passed Steven Johnson for fifth, squeezing Johnson off the road at turn two as he did so, and on lap 29 he took fourth from Davison, again the two cars in close contact.

With Whincup failing to score a point for his fourth consecutive race, he continued to fall down the championship order.

Garth Tander leads the title race on 530 points, 20 ahead of Craig Lowndes. Nine points behind Lowndes is his teammate Whincup, with Rick Kelly five points behind Whincup and only 34 behind teammate and championship leader Tander.

With 144 points up for grabs at the last two rounds, and everyone else ruled out of the title battle, the title battle is on between the two Toll HSV and Team Vodafone drivers, any of the four close enough if they are good enough.

Pos  Driver                Car
 1.  Craig Lowndes         Ford Falcon BF
 2.  James Courtney        Ford Falcon BF
 3.  Mark Winterbottom     Ford Falcon BF
 4.  Garth Tander          Holden Commodore VE
 5.  Will Davison          Ford Falcon BF
 6.  Steven Johnson        Ford Falcon BF
 7.  Russell Ingall        Ford Falcon BF
 8.  Rick Kelly            Holden Commodore VE
 9.  Dean Canto            Holden Commodore VE
10.  Greg Murphy           Holden Commodore VE
11.  Jason Bargwanna       Ford Falcon BF
12.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden Commodore VE
13.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon BF
14.  Paul Dumbrell         Holden Commodore VE
15.  Jason Richards        Holden Commodore VE
16.  Jamie Whincup         Ford Falcon BF
17.  Owen Kelly            Holden Commodore VZ
18.  John Bowe             Ford Falcon BF
19.  Steve Owen            Holden Commodore VZ
20.  Max Wilson            Ford Falcon BF
21.  Mark Skaife           Holden Commodore VE
22.  Andrew Jones          Ford Falcon BF
23.  Simon Wills           Ford Falcon BF
24.  Alan Gurr             Ford Falcon BF
25.  Steven Richards       Ford Falcon BF
26.  Shane Price           Holden Commodore VE
27.  Cameron McConville    Holden Commodore VE
DNF  Jason Bright          Ford Falcon BF
DNF  Paul Morris           Holden Commodore VE
DNF  Todd Kelly            Holden Commodore VE
DNF  Jack Perkins          Holden Commodore VE