The fight for second in the V8 Supercar Championship Series heated up literally today with TeamVodafone playing their hand in the battle with arch enemies Ford Performance Racing at the Sydney Telstra 500 today.
In a crazy day when the medical car crashed into Shane Van Gisbergen's SP Tools Falcon and David Reynolds had a pit stop for a 'boot change' when his right shoe melted again the extreme heat.
Champion-elect Jamie Whincup deliberately stopped in pit lane to let his team-mate Craig Lowndes past during a safety car, pushing Lowndes into third position in his direct battle with Orccon Steel FPR's Mark Winterbottom for second in the Championship.
Whincup had the presence of mind to pull over in a neutral area of pit lane and let Lowndes past as the two headed towards a pit stop together. At that stage of the race the move put Lowndes in second with Winterbottom eleventh.
Lowndes won the race and now sits in second with the last race of the season tomorrow.
"Great call by the team," Lowndes said. "Jamie gave me the win. It was a scenario we talked about and we were very mindful of a 1-2 in the Championship.
"As I was coming down the boys told me Jamie was going to pull over and let me past. For that to activate I had to be close enough to Jamie. I wasn't in the first round of stops I wasn't but the second I was."
Ironically Whincup came out on front of Winterbottom, playing tail-gunner for Lowndes. The gamesmanship followed on from Winton when Will Davison blatantly let Winterbottom through during the race.
The then leader Tim Slade, who earlier in the day claimed a career first Armor All Pole Position, made a mistake with 12 laps to go allowing Lowndes through. But he was still stoked with what was ultimately second place, and his first career podium, in the Lucky Seven Falcon.
"It's been an awesome day. We have ticked a lot of boxes this year and that was another one. In the same breath I didn't want to make a mistake and that it was a big, long tough race. It was hard to save fuel but all excuses aside I did make a mistake," said Slade.
"We saved enough fuel in the last lap or so to have a go at the guys. We close the gap but it was another matter trying to get past."
Holden Racing Team's James Courtney also had to conserve fuel in the closing laps and finished third, picking up his first podium of the season.
"It's been a long time between drinks but it's good that I've finally got a podium this year," said Courtney.
"The guys did a great job. I started to get a bit emotional there at the end when I had to back off and let the guys go, but it's still great to come home in third."
Tekno Autosports Jonathon Webb finished fourth, while Jamie Whincup (who started 14th) recovered to finish 5th after having charged through the field to as high as second before his pit stop.
Rick Kelly showed good pace to finish sixth, ahead of his Kelly Racing teammate Karl Reindler. James Moffat, Winterbottom and Michael Caruso rounded out the top ten.
Slade snatched his first ever ARMOR ALL Pole Position before the race. Slade, the seventh car out, posted a quickest lap of 1m 29.5515s and had to wait nervously in the Stone Brothers Racing garage as the rest of the top ten completed their laps.
He was gifted a position when Rick Kelly lost oil pressure in the #15 Jack Daniel's Commodore on the warm up lap and did not start his flying lap.
Provisional pole-sitter Will Davison was the last car out and was up by half a second, but a brush with the wall in the final sector handed Slade his career first ARMOR ALL pole position.
Fujitsu GRM Racing's Alex Premat did not finish the race after suffering heat exhaustion when his 'cool' suit failed during the race. Premat was assisted out of his car and then treated but returned to his team after the race.
It is expected he will take his place on the grid tomorrow.