Jamie Whincup had time enough to do a mid-race ‘donut’ and still re-exert his authority in the V8 Supercar Championship with a fight back win in Tasmania today.
Whincup reeled in Championship leader Will Davison to a margin of 18 points after the Tasmanian Challenge at Symmons Plains. Davison finished third in his Trading Post FPR Falcon with Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen second in the SP Tools Falcon.
In a TeamVodafone Commodore that has struggled all weekend Whincup recorded his 54th career victory and passed the seven win previous record of Peter Brock and Garth Tander.
Such had been his weekend he apologised to his team for ‘putting up with me’ having been extremely unhappy with the performance before today.
"We had a tough weekend all in all so to come away with that I'm a little bit shocked," said Whincup, who led home five Fords.
"It's crazy how this sport works. Nothing went right all weekend and we walk away with a third and a win. I don't want to dwell on the negatives but we'll improve on that.”
Whincup spun at the turn two hairpin on lap 10 avoiding a rear end collision with good mate and Championship leader Davison. He spun the car around on a dime to return to the race but lost a handful of positions thanks to the incident.
“I was very lucky that I had just enough revs to spin the car around,” he said. “Otherwise I would have sat still waiting for a car to clean me up.”
Earlier in the race it looked like Whincup’s team-mate Craig Lowndes was the main to beat until he smashed into Davison on lap 30, breaking the front suspension.
“I had good position over Will coming into the hairpin. We had to give it a go because we had Frosty catching us. It's just motor racing, you give it your best shot and sometimes you come off second best,” said Lowndes.
Davison was grateful to get through the race in third as he battled numbness through his right leg, something he has struggled with since late last year. The problem is still unidentified.
“Those are the sort of races you can really get yourself into trouble,” Davison said. “You have got to know when to fight and when to concede.”
While Lowndes led early he was jumped in the pits by Davison on lap 16. The two extra laps Davison was able to get on the softer compound tyre effectively gave him the lead based on higher fuel efficiency.
But Whincup prevailed when he regained the lead and held it to the end.
Stone Brothers Racing had a strong day with Tim Slade fourth and Lee Holdsworth sixth, separated by Mark Winterbottom, who lost time stalling on the exit of his second pit stop.
Michael Caruso charged through from 22nd on the grid to finish seventh from James Courtney, Jonathon Webb and Todd Kelly - who started 19th.
It was a tough day for Garth Tander - he had a clash early with David Reynolds that damaged the steering on the latter’s Falcon, and later the HRT driver suffered a puncture from a clash while in a dice with Webb and Rick Kelly. Tander eventually finished 22nd.
A total of 24 cars finished on the lead lap with the V8 Supercars Championship to resume in three weeks time for the ITM400 Hamilton in New Zealand.
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