Asian Motor Sports

Jamie Whincup arguably extracted his finest 50 minutes of racing this season to seal the opening leg of the Coffee Club V8 Supercars Challenge on the streets of Surfers Paradise today.

Under immense pressure from Holden Racing Team star Garth Tander, Whincup led from pole to win the 27-lap thriller by 0.26sec.

After taking a comfortable pole in qualifying, Whincup spent almost the whole race with Garth Tander and Mark Winterbottom on his bumper, just keeping them behind him to extend his lead slightly over his two closest championship rivals.

A few seconds behind them in fourth was Todd Kelly in an impressive performance for Jack Daniel’s Racing, just beating home Russell Ingall’s Supercheap machine after moving ahead during the compulsory pitstop phase.

Whincup’s teammate Craig Lowndes was sixth, with Will Davison, Paul Dumbrell, James Courtney and Lee Holdsworth completing the top ten as the narrow streets made passing difficult.

Rick Kelly’s hopes of a good finish went up in smoke (literally) when the car’s engine failed on lap 5.

“Obviously we didn’t have the quickest car out there today but we got maximum points,” Whincup admitted.

“Both Mark (Winterbottom) and Garth (Tander) had much quicker cars than me today but we will make some tweaks overnight.

“We had a few other little issues inside the cabin as well which cost me a little bit of time but we’ll fix them – they are only small things and we’ll come out strong tomorrow.”

Tander staged a concerted push for the lead several laps after Whincup’s compulsory tyre stop on lap 11.

With Whincup released back on to the track he gained a clear advantage over Tander before the gap began shrinking.

“Jamie out-dragged me down to one (the first chicane) after the start and from then on it was a matter of following him and trying to enforce a mistake but Jamie drove a great race.”

Tander’s team extricated some slick recovery work on the set-up overnight after his qualifying run on Friday and he believes there is more to come for the twin 27-lap races on Sunday.

“We fixed a lot of stuff that we needed to fix and we have a good idea tomorrow of what we need to fix again to make the car better again.”Whinners wins in thriller

Pos Driver Make Time
1. Jamie Whincup Ford 52:27.0448
2. Garth Tander Holden + 0.2671
3. Mark Winterbottom Ford + 2.3341
4. Todd Kelly Holden + 7.0574
5. Russell Ingall Holden + 7.6736
6. Craig Lowndes Ford + 10.1256
7. Will Davison Ford + 11.2970
8. Paul Dumbrell Holden + 12.0882
9. James Courtney Ford + 12.8874
10. Lee Holdsworth Holden + 13.3796
11. Steven Richards Ford + 13.8192
12. Steven Johnson Ford + 18.5305
13. Mark Skaife Holden + 26.8529
14. Cameron McConville Holden + 27.3318
15. Jason Richards Holden + 27.8093
16. Fabian Coulthard Ford + 41.9124
17. Andrew Jones Holden + 50.1774
18. Michael Caruso Holden + 56.6048
19. Shane Van Gisbergen Ford +1:06.4247
20. Steve Owen Ford +1:16.5476
21. Jason Bright Ford +1:17.5643
22. Jack Perkins Holden +1:17.8415
23. Michael Patrizi Ford +1:35.2446
24. Andrew Thompson Holden +1:35.6951
25. Paul Morris Holden + 1 lap
26. Marcus Marshall Ford + 2 laps

Not classified/retirements:

Driver Make Laps
Tony D’Alberto Holden 7
Greg Murphy Holden 7
Rick Kelly Holden 5