Lowndes takes back-to-back wins
Team Vodafone's Craig Lowndes has taken back-to-back victories after winning the second race of this weekend's event at Winton Motor Raceway
Lowndes ran second in the early laps and despite an issue at his pitstop and another when a lapped car exited the pits, was able to run at the front all day and made the best of the conditions to take the lead on lap 45 and lead the rest of the way.
After dramas in Saturday's race, Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom had a much better race on Sunday. Winterbottom also spent most of the race near the front, just a few seconds behind Lowndes at the finish as he was for most of the race.
Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander finished third just ahead of Paul Dumbrell and Will Davison despite running most of the race with a heavily-damaged bonnet after making contact after the race restarted on lap 23 following a safety car for the stranded car of Lee Holdsworth.
Dumbrell's result was his best of the season but it could have been even better. When the safety car came out on lap 20, he had a 17.8 second lead over second-placed driver Craig Lowndes after running new soft tyres at the start of the race, but switched to the harder tyres at the stop and couldn't duplicate the pace (and lost all his margin too).
James Courtney finished sixth, while Rick Kelly finished seventh just ahead of a pair of hard-charging drivers who switched to the soft tyre late in the race, David Reynolds and Marcus Marshall charging through from 24th and 25th after their stops to eighth and ninth, Marshall setting a new lap record along the way.
Though Dumbrell lost out on a possible win when the safety car came out, it was series leader Jamie Whincup who was the biggest loser at the pitstops under the safety car. Running third just behind team-mate Lowndes at the time, he was forced to stop partly in the fast lane as Lowndes made his stop.
The situation was compounded firstly by Lowndes overshooting his marks, time being lost as Lowndes' car was pushed back, and then by Winterbottom being unable to pull out of his bay as he couldn't manouevre around the tyres that had just come off Lowndes' car.
With most of the field pitting under safety car, he restarted 25th, and being on the standard tyre struggled to make much ground on a track known for its difficulty to pass other cars on, eventually finishing 13th.
Despite his poor result in the second race, Whincup's advantage over second in the championship remained quite similar to what it was after Hamilton, 114 points ahead of Will Davison.
But a DNF for Lee Holdsworth means he drops to 270 points behind Whincup in fourth, with Steven Johnson up to third 231 points behind despite finishing both races outside the top ten.
Pos Driver Make Time 1. Craig Lowndes Ford 1:37:06.3464 2. Mark Winterbottom Ford + 2.5120 3. Garth Tander Holden + 19.0707 4. Paul Dumbrell Holden + 20.7570 5. Will Davison Holden + 21.1122 6. James Courtney Ford + 24.1522 7. Rick Kelly Holden + 44.8677 8. David Reynolds Holden + 45.1154 9. Marcus Marshall Ford + 45.6042 10. Jason Bargwanna Holden + 45.6547 11. Russell Ingall Holden + 47.3323 12. Shane van Gisbergen Ford + 48.2278 13. Jamie Whincup Ford + 48.7165 14. Tony D'Alberto Holden + 58.0427 15. Alex Davison Ford + 1:02.8351 16. Steven Richards Ford + 1:04.9679 17. Tim Slade Holden + 1:06.8295 18. Dale Wood Holden + 1:07.0190 19. Jack Perkins Holden + 1:11.6535 20. Greg Murphy Holden + 1:13.6246 21. Steven Johnson Ford + 1:17.5758 22. Michael Patrizi Ford + 1:19.0358 23. Cameron McConville Holden + 1:37.2308 24. Todd Kelly Holden + 1 lap 25. Dean Fiore Holden + 1 lap 26. Jason Richards Holden + 1 lap 27. Michael Caruso Holden + 6 laps Not classified/retirements: Driver Make Laps Fabian Coulthard Ford 46 Lee Holdsworth Holden 18 Jason Bright Ford 11
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