Will Davison dusted himself off and hit ‘re-set’ to climb out of the depths of despair to the winner’s circle after another frenzied day of V8 Supercars at its best in the Phillip Island 300.
The Trading Post FPR Falcon pilot recovered from the devastation of 24 hour before when he walked back from a broken V8 Supercar to fight back with another dominant display.
He benefitted from a fast car, solid strategy and some safety car mayhem to hold out a fast-finishing Craig Lowndes in his TeamVodafone Holden and a fighting Jason Bright who kept his mettle under extreme pressure in the closing laps.
It was the same scenario as the last V8 Supercar event in Perth where Davison regrouped mentally from a Saturday disaster to restamp his authority, at the same time seizing back the Championship lead from Jamie Whincup.
“It’s a test of the character, I was down and out on Saturday night but started with a fresh sheet of paper,” Davison said. I was a grump old man last night, really angry for a lot of reasons. I just didn’t enjoy that at all so I woke up today fresh.”
Davison was relieved to regain the Championship lead.
“You have to keep going, you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you stuff up but you have to get on with it. Of course it’s a good thing, It’s great to be in contention. I really look forward to these next block of races. As soon as you back off things start to happen. So I have to press on and go hard.”
The moment was not lost on FPR team boss Tim Edwards who was fronted by a series of allegations about his cars during the race.
“I think our friends down the end there have decided they can’t beat us on the track so they will try it in the stewards’ office,” Edwards said. “There are three things being looked at tonight, all instigated by TeamVodafone.”
In the red corner Lowndes was very happy he overcame a shocking start from Armor All pole position to challenge Davison in the closing stages.
“It’s somewhere I need to improve, it’s a bit hit and miss at the moment. We had a fast car that helped me pass people but also look after the tyres. It was one of those races where you were satisfied at the end because you gave it your all,” Lowndes said.
“It was probably one of the ones that got away. The cars are fast, there’s no doubt about that. We have just got to get those ten percenters right. This Championship is so close you can’t afford to slip up in any area.”
Bright opted for a one stop strategy in the Team BOC Commodore and led for quite a while, eventually finishing third, his best race result at Phillip Island since 2003.
“We were on a different strategy and I was pretty happy with the pace,” Bright said.
“We have made a lot of ground. We are getting on top of some of the problems we are having at particular circuits. When you run up the front there with 888 and FPR I didn’t think that was possible a few weeks ago.”
Shane van Gisbergen passed Jamie Whincup late to take fourth with the reigning Champion fifth from yesterday's winner Mark Winterbottom.
Jonathon Webb was seventh from David Reynolds, Lee Holdsworth and Garth Tander.
Todd Kelly was 11th and best of the four Kelly Racing cars, followed by Tim Slade, James Courtney (who started from pit lane and passed half of the field), Greg Murphy and Russell Ingall (who, like Walkinshaw Racing stablemate Courtney started from the pits).
A total of 21 cars finished on the lead lap with the V8 Supercars Championship now to head to Hidden Valley in Darwin for the next event.
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