Whincup wins Winton race one

Winterbottom led the field away at the start but was soon in trouble as his left rear tyre deflated, losing the lead to Will Davison on lap 4 with the rest of the field finding their way past over the next couple of laps, Winterbottom's team choosing to keep him on track until the compulsory pit stop window opened at the end of lap 6.

With Winterbottom out of contention, Davison took over the lead just ahead of Whincup, with Tander in close pursuit. The top trio pitted on consecutive laps, Tander on lap 10, Whincup on lap 11 and Davison on lap 12.

Whincup extended his gap over Tander and was right on Davison's tail as he exited the pits, Whincup able to take advantage as Davison struggled for grip on cold rear tyres through the following esses to take the lead.

From there Whincup went on to victory, with Davison spending the second half of the race fending off Tander.

Fourth place went to Jason Richards, less than half a second ahead of Steven Richards, who fought back from an off on lap one that dropped him to eleventh, with Lee Holdsworth less than a second further back.

Todd Kelly moved up from eleventh on the grid to finish seventh, just ahead of Russell Ingall who went from fifteenth to eighth, with Michael Caruso in ninth place. James Courtney completed the top ten after starting seventeenth.

After dropping to last place due to his deflated left rear tyre, polesitter Mark Winterbottom was only able to move up eight places over the remaining 34 laps to 21st after losing a large amount of time in the early laps on the deflating tyre, as well as having to repair damage to the rear of his car at the pitstop.

Pos  Driver                Make     Time
 1.  Jamie Whincup         Ford     57:39.1073
 2.  Will Davison          Ford     +   2.7240 
 3.  Garth Tander          Holden   +   3.4542 
 4.  Jason Richards        Holden   +   8.9328 
 5.  Steven Richards       Ford     +   9.3006 
 6.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden   +  10.0416
 7.  Todd Kelly            Holden   +  15.7741
 8.  Russell Ingall        Holden   +  16.5422
 9.  Michael Caruso        Holden   +  17.0188
10.  James Courtney        Ford     +  23.1006
11.  Rick Kelly            Holden   +  28.2624
12.  Craig Lowndes         Ford     +  28.7723
13.  Mark Skaife           Holden   +  32.9455
14.  Paul Morris           Holden   +  33.3778
15.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford     +  33.7854
16.  Paul Dumbrell         Holden   +  36.4673
17.  Andrew Thompson       Holden   +  37.3888
18.  Steven Johnson        Ford     +  41.8426
19.  Fabian Coulthard      Ford     +  42.1633
20.  Jason Bright          Ford     +  44.1223
21.  Mark Winterbottom     Ford     +  45.2174
22.  Shane Price           Holden   +  48.1499
23.  Cameron McConville    Holden   +  48.4613
24.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden   +  50.4135
25.  Michael Patrizi       Ford     +1:06.2387
26.  Marcus Marshall       Ford     +1:07.2190
27.  Greg Murphy           Holden   +1:10.7280
28.  Chris Pither          Ford     +1:24.6371
29.  Andrew Jones          Holden   +   4 laps