MOTORSPORT: Lowndes wins Ipswich Supercars

Craig Lowndes has delivered a timely reminder he is a contender the 2016 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship (VASC), with a typically high-scoring performance at Queensland Raceway over the weekend.

In the eighth point-paying event of 2016, the 42 year old warmed up with a close third in Saturday’s 120km race and then out-raced the young guns with a clear victory on Sunday in the 200km main event.

It meant the TeamVortex Holden Commodore VF driver top-scored with 279 points over the two races, albeit only three more than his Triple Eight team-mate Jamie Whincup in the Red Bull Racing Australia (RBRA) Holden.

Whincup drove to two very different second places over the weekend. On Sunday he effectively acted as Lowndes tail-gunner, while on Saturday he led most of the race before being passed with just two laps to go by RBRA team-mate, Shane van Gisbergen. Van Gisbergen had a terrible run on Sunday – a combination of set-up dramas and a snap decision to pit and stack for an expected safety car that didn’t eventuate. Whincup thus exited the meeting having more than doubled his driver’s championship lead to 110 points over his team-mate.

But even as Whincup took a slightly firmer hold on championship number seven, he still would not have been all that happy. He entered the event on 99 wins but could not get the job done, despite claiming pole position number 69 on Sunday. In both races he was in charge of a car that simply would not perform as he wanted. No doubt that will be a subject of much discussion and analysis in this week’s debrief.

So it was left to van Gisbergen to chalk up Triple Eight’s 100th win as a Holden team on Saturday and, on Sunday, for Lowndes to record his 80th win for the marque, equaling the record of Mark Skaife. It was appropriate Lowndes recorded that milestone at QR as he now has 12 wins at the place, more than double the next best driver. The two wins over the weekend also extended T8’s dominant record at its test track.

Prodrive Racing Australia was the only team that posed a threat Triple Eight. Defending champion Mark Winterbottom went 4-5 in his The Bottle-O Ford Falcon FG X, while young gun teammate, Chaz Mostert, went 5-3 in his best outing for the year so far.

Winterbottom is emerging as the only championship threat to the T8 cars as Scott McLaughlin’s form continues to slide in the Wilson Security GRM Volvo S60. Finishing only 15th on Saturday was a disaster. Sixth on Sunday was a good fightback, but still left him drifting further from the pace than ever.

Instead it was another surprising Kiwi, rookie Chris Pither, who showed front-running form. Driving the Super Black Racing Falcon, the 29-year old snared his first ever pole on Saturday in a car prepared and raced out of Prodrive’s Melbourne shop. He got his ears boxed a bit by the tough nuts to finish only 11th, but fought back on Sunday for eighth. This was also his best race meeting of the year and a sign the Fords are finding more pace.

But they need to keep improving yet, because having won five races in a row, Triple Eight is now taking a grip of both the drivers’ and teams’ championship.

The last time any one else got a look-in was Michael Caruso in the Nissan Motorsport Nissan in the opening race in Darwin. And Caruso was one of the main threats at Ipswich on Sunday when he finished fourth and briefly looked capable of at least second. On Saturday he got bundled out of the way by DJR Team Penske’s Fabian Coulthard and finished way back.

For the American-owned team this was its worst meeting of the year, being fundamentally uncompetitive on its test track. Coulthard topped the times on Friday, but that was as far as the good news went. His team-mate Scott Pye slammed into the barriers on Saturday morning after a brake failure and only a rushed rebuilt got him to the back of the grid for that afternoon’s race.

Pye showed great strength of character to qualify sixth for Sunday’s race only to be spun out on lap two by James Courtney’s Holden Racing Team Commodore. Pye finished 24th while Coulthard battled and banged his way home for 10th after qualifying 15th.

As for embattled HRT; the hopes of a revival from the factory team based on recent developments proved ill-founded, with the team unable to qualify, race or finish in the top 10 all weekend.

V8 Supercars Championship points:
1. Jamie Whincup – Red Bull Racing Australia – Holden Commodore VF – 1821
2. Shane van Gisbergen – Red Bull Racing Australia – Holden Commodore VF – 1711
3. Mark Winterbottom - The Bottle-O Racing – Ford Falcon FG X – 1701
4. Craig Lowndes – TeamVortex – Holden Commodore VF – 1671
5. Scott McLaughlin – Wilson Security Racing GRM – Volvo S60 – 1536