Holden’s Rick Kelly won the first race at Sandown Raceway while Holden-Vodafone’s Craig Lowndes battled pouring rain, low visibility, dangerous conditions and accidents to finish sixth and keep his Championship aspirations alive.
Starting from pole, Rick Kelly’s wet weather competance came to the fore. He never relinquished his advantage on way to claiming victory beating Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney with Rick’s brother Todd Kelly finishing in third, completing a 1-2-3 for Holden motosport
Lowndes trimmed Team Vodafone team-mate Whincup’s championship lead to 158 points and did it with a dynamic drive from the back of the grid to finish ahead of Whincup and keep alive chance of winning the Championship.
After a disasterous qualifying session which left him starting from 27th spot, Lowndes took the race by the scruff of the neck in conditions drivers described as the most difficult they had encountered in years, he passed Whincup, who had qualified second but due to tyre grip problems slipped back to finish 13th.
Craig Lowndes, went into Sunday’s round fully expecting his Vodafone team mate Jamie Whincup to come back at him in the second race as the current points leader would need to score as many points as possible before the series finale the Sydney 500
Whincup, as expected, tightened his grip on a third V8 championship by qualifying on pole then controlling a copy-book drive from the front to win the second race on Sunday. In good weather Whincup had a fast car and benefited from his team’s pit strategies as Lowndes was forced to pit early under his strategy and finished fourth.
Whincup beat Ford Performance Racing duo Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison but Lowndes, fourth, has given him a mathematical chance of beating Whincup in the season finale around the streets of Sydney next week.
Lowndes has a mammoth task and will have to play catch-up again but remained upbeat the tricky Sydney course could help him to win his first title in 12 years.
Whincup could secure the championship with fourth place or better in the opening race in Sydney on December 3, or simply by finishing ahead of Lowndes.
