Tander, Skaife win Phillip Island 500

Their hopes looked gone in the middle of the race after a decent beginning, but heavy rain just at two-thirds altered many teams' races. Team Vodafone's Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup came home a close second, with Jim Beam Racing's Will Davison and Steven Johnson completing a strong day with third.

Despite not changing to wets during the rain, Ford Performance Racing's Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom stayed on the track and recovered in the closing laps to finish fourth, half a second ahead of Garry Rogers' Michael Caruso and Lee Holdsworth.

Other contenders that looked set for a podium finish earlier in the race included Jeld-Wen Motorsport's David Besnard and James Courtney in sixth, HSV Dealer Team's Rick Kelly and Paul Radisich in seventh and Supercheap Auto's Russell Ingall and Paul Morris in ninth.

The race looked set to be a battle between the Ford Performance Racing car of Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom and the Team Vodafone car of Lowndes and Whincup before an engine failure for the second HSV Dealer Team car brought out the safety car for the first time just before two-thirds distance.

This bunched up the field, but it was the rain that fell on lap 72 of 113 that sent the race (and some of the cars) into a spin. Having just retaken the lead, Whincup immediately pitted for wets, a lap earlier than many other runners.

Some drivers remained on slicks in torrential conditions, while Shane van Gisbergen had moved up to second and was taking two or more seconds a lap out of leader Whincup. Just before he caught him Andrew Jones rolled his BOC Gases Commodore at the 'Hayshed', bringing the safety car back out.

With the track drying, it was an opportune time to swap wets back to slicks (providing you had switched to begin with). It left Van Gisbergen as the only leading runner on wets as the race restarted, but another incident saw the safety car return almost immediately. Van Gisbergen pitted and dropping to tenth, where he finished, despite a spectacular off at Lukey Heights in the closing laps.

Lap 91 and the race restarted, Whincup leading from Tander, the Holden Racing Team having made a remarkable recovery after dropping as low as 14th thirty laps earlier as Mark Skaife lost a large amount of ground during his stint at the wheel as he struggled for speed before the rain came.

Whincup opened a small lead after the restart, partly thanks to a lapped car, but another safety car wasn't far away after Russell Ingall and Tony D'Alberto went off at the 'Hayshed'.

This meant that when the race restarted on lap 99, the two leaders were nose-to-tail, Whincup unable to shake Tander off his tail. It seemed inevitable that the pressure would lead to a change in the order, Tander taking the lead when Whincup outbraked himself at the hairpin.

Whincup recovered without losing a place and chased after Tander, but the gap was too big to bridge in the remaining laps, Tander and Skaife taking Holden's first endurance win since October 2005 at Bathurst.

With the win, Tander extends his lead in the championship from 12 to 53 points over Mark Winterbottom, with Jamie Whincup closing in ny a few points, 80 points behind Tander as they head for Bathurst at the start of the October, their nearest challengers over a full round win behind them.

Pos  Drivers                   Make     Time
 1.  Skaife/Tander             Holden   3:22:21.8273
 2.  Lowndes/Whincup           Ford     +     1.6500
 3.  Davison/Johnson           Ford     +     8.0179
 4.  S Richards/Winterbottom   Ford     +     9.4141
 5.  Caruso/Holdsworth         Holden   +     9.9261
 6.  Besnard/Courtney          Ford     +    14.9634
 7.  R Kelly/Radisich          Holden   +    15.3930
 8.  Perkins/Pretty            Holden   +    25.2742
 9.  Ingall/Morris             Holden   +    32.3105
10.  Van Gisbergen/Webb        Ford     +    43.8045
11.  Bright/Macrow             Ford     +    44.1212
12.  Ellery/Ritter             Holden   +    48.9243
13.  T Kelly/Price             Holden   +     1 lap
14.  Baird/Seton               Holden   +     1 lap
15.  B Jones/Wilson            Holden   +     1 lap
16.  Coulthard/McIntyre        Ford     +     1 lap
17.  Giovanardi/Hynes          Ford     +     1 lap
18.  Denyer/Patrizi            Ford     +     1 lap
19.  Neal/Said                 Holden   +     1 lap
20.  Noske/Wood                Holden   +     2 laps
21.  Halliday/Marshall         Ford     +     2 laps
22.  Luff/Owen                 Ford     +     3 laps
23.  Thompson/Weel             Holden   +     3 laps
24.  Canto/Youlden             Ford     +     4 laps

Not classified/retirements:

     Drivers                   Make     Laps
     A Jones/McConville        Holden    80
     Bargwanna/D'Alberto       Holden    80
     Dumbrell/Reynolds         Holden    65
     Murphy/J Richards         Holden    12