After crashing out in the top ten shoot out, Holden Vodafone’s Craig Lowndes put in the drive of his life at the Sydney Olympic Park street circuit on Saturday to claim his fifth win of the season and reduce the margin back to team-mate and championship points leader Jamie Whincup to 83 points.
Starting from tenth on the grid because of his driving indiscretion during the hot lap,f ound himself five spots behind Whincup, however 25 laps into the race Whincup had steering damage hitting the concrete wall as he took the car into the pits for lengthy repairs. Lowndes, who found himself in front finished first followed by Garth Tander and Shane van Gisbergen as that pair gobbled the field with many cars running out of fuel in the final few laps.
Whincup meanwhile did have is car back on the track but could not do any better than finish in 20th position where his effort earned him 45 valuable points with one race left the next day to decide the championship. Lowndes forced a showdown with his victory on Saturday and nearly went on to almost win his fourth V8 Supercar championship in Sunday’s race by finishing second to Ford’s Mark ‘Frosty’ Winterbottom, but Whincup’s eighth placing in the other Holden -Vodafone car was enough for him to win the title by just 35 points.
The two Vodafone drivers started on wet tyres while many opted to start from pit lane changing from wet tyres to slicks after the warm up lap. Ford’s Paul Dumbrell was unlucky in crashing out with less then 10 laps remaining when he was on track for a podium finish in his last race a full-time V8 Supercar driver. Ford’s New Zealand young gun Shane van Gisbergen finished third and also as the overall third-placed driver in the championship after colliding with Lee Holdsworth’s Holden on the final corner. Whincup’s 2011 title lifts him alongside Lowndes and the great Peter Brock as a 3 time champion and the second man to win title in both a Ford and a Holden.