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Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes won the Bathurst 1000 for the second year in a row. The last 15 laps of the 161 lap race was were all the action took place when it started to rain and was too heart stopping to begin to describe. Craig Lowndes managed to hold on for the last 7 laps with the lead and take out 1st place for Team Vodafone and Triple Eight with Will Davison and Steve Johnson (Jim Beam Racing) coming in 2nd and James Courtney and David Besnard (SBR) 3rd making it a Ford 1,2,3.

All I can say to Jamie is maybe you need to take a break from dirt bike riding as it seems you like off roading way too much!!!

Jamie now has the Championship lead with Craig Lowndes in 2nd with Indy only 10 days away.

Jamie Whincup and teammate Craig Lowndes have won the Sandown 500 for Round 9 of the V8 Supercars Championships, driving for the 888 mobile of TeamVodafone.

Whincup was handed the task of qualifying the car, a job which he did pretty well to end in 3rd. But come the top ten shootout, which has been re-introduced for the enduros, Whincup could only managed a 5th placing.

Starting the race from 5th on the grid was designated co-driver Lowndes. Lowndes actually had a pretty average start, but recovered well to maintain the inside line into Turn 1, and went past David Besnard to slot into 3rd behind Todd Kelly.

Lowndes seemed to be sitting back after awhile to watch the duel between Winterbottom and Todd in front of him unravel. But Lap 32. Lowndes slowly crept up behind Todd's tail. But could not find a way past Todd.

End Lap 46, Winterbottom pitted for a driver change, and end Lap 50, it was Todd. Lowndes stayed out, hence inheriting the lead. But Lap 55, Lowndes pitted to hand the keys to Whincup.

Quick change and pit stop, and Whincup left the pits behind Matt Halliday (taking over from Winterbottom) and more importantly, in front of Nathan Pretty (Todd Kelly). Lap 60, Jason Bright had an off which brought in the Safety Car.

Restart on Lap 63, Turn 9, an a hungry Whincup got pass the FPR car to take the lead and slowly etched a big gap. By Lap 75, the gap between Whincup and the FPR car was 6+ seconds.

Lap 80. 11.4 seconds gap. Lap 90. 17.8 seconds lead.

Lap 113. Whincup came in again to hand the keys back to Lowndes with a 14 seconds lead to Rick Kelly. But some other incident brought out the Safety Car again, and Lowndes came out of the pits stuck between traffic.

Restart on Lap 116 and an impatient Lowndes was fuming while trying to get pass traffic. Lowndes was not happy with old teammate Murphy for not letting Lowndes through, and especially so with the officials for not showing the blue flags. An angry Lowndes hence lost concentration on Lap 122 and had a minor off while trying to overtake Murphy. But luckily he managed to pull it back in and continue in the lead.

Lap 124. some minor drizzle but not wet enough to switch tyres.

Lap 130. Lowndes finally got pass Murphy. Murphy later got a drive through, which i personally think was a little harsh on him, but that's the poor V8 Supercars officiating for you.

Lap 137, Lowndes got passed a now lapped Todd (who then had a slight off) and held the lead all the way to the finish line.

So congratulations to both Whincup and Lowndes for the win. Bring on Bathurst.

TeamVodafone Official Site News Reports 1 , 2

Labels: Jamie Whincup

Labels: Jamie Whincup, Willowbank