JAMIE Whincup claimed his second win of the 2018 Supercars season, romping to victory in Race 7 of the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint.
The reigning champion charged into the lead during the pit stops, heading home Craig Lowndes for a Triple Eight one-two. The podium result is Lowndes’ first since the same race 12 months ago.
James Courtney rounded out an all-Holden podium, a later stop for tyres paying dividends while an early stop for pole man Shane van Gisbergen proved the wrong strategy, the points leader fading to sixth.
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RESULTS: Click here for full results from Race 7, Tasmania
The win is Whincup’s 12th at Symmons Plains and the 110th of his career.
“The crew gave me an absolute rocket today,” he said. “SVG pitted early and I just bolted, bolted, bolted to try and get track position.”
If the track had been wider or the run to Turn 1 longer, Lowndes would have beat both his teammates there. Instead, his electric start from the second row only brought him alongside teammate Whincup, with van Gisbergen leading the train around on the opening lap.
The first scuffle would come at the tail-end of the field, an incident between Simona De Silvestro and Richie Stanaway sending the former to the tail of the field and the latter to the garage for repairs.
Van Gisbergen was the first of the leaders to pit on Lap 6, taking on three tyres and leaving the warm left front on the car – the same strategy that all three Triple Eight cars would adopt.
McLaughlin would pit next a couple of laps later, a faster stop seeing him exit the lane side-by-side with the No.97. They bashed panels on the run down to the hairpin, where van Gisbergen would pull ahead.
Whincup and Lowndes were the next heavy-hitters to head to the lane, both rejoining ahead of van Gisbergen, but the pole man would pick off the veteran when they got to the hairpin.
By Lap 20, the late stoppers were already showing themselves to have a notable tyre advantage over those who’d stopped earlier.
Courtney took four tyres at his stop and immediately charged past Tander, then Coulthard, and quickly caught up to McLaughlin, while Reynolds took three and made similar rapid progress forward.
Albert Park winner Scott Pye lost all hope of a top result after stalling at the end of his stop, while Chaz Mostert had to bail out of the No.55 Supercheap Auto Ford after it caught fire as he left his pit bay.
Courtney’s fresher tyres were working a treat, picking off McLaughlin, then following Lowndes past Van Gisbergen as they demoted the polesitter to fourth.
It was the start of a fade down the field for SVG, who soon lost spots to Reynolds – giving the Penrite car a tap in the rear bumper for its troubles – and Coulthard thanks to double the expected tyre degradation.
“It’s as simple as that. We’ve exposed him,” Mark Dutton, Red Bull team manager, conceded. “After the race we’ll look at the car and see what we can do different (but) it’s just our strategy was wrong.”
His early sparring partner McLaughlin was having problems of his own, a problem with an electrical sensor costing him precious straightline speed.
“I think it was either the gearlever or something,” McLaughlin said after the race. “(I was) grabbing it with two hands, tight, loose, pulling at different angles. It was intermittent.
“Our car pace was okay. We got two cars in the 10, but on days like these you want to capitalise on where you start.”
With 20 laps to go, Whincup’s margin over Lowndes sat at 4.2 seconds, but the Autobarn car had Courtney and Reynolds glued to his rear bumper.
Holdsworth pitted among the latest of all, quickly working his way towards the top 10 by dint of fresher rubber. Davison was the last car to head to the lane, pitting from the lead just 12 laps from home but falling to 22nd place.
Lowndes steadily chipped a second out of Whincup’s lead to bring it down to an even three seconds with 10 laps to go, while slowly ekeing out a gap over Courtney in third.
Coulthard continued a lonely run in fifth, while van Gisbergen was next at the head of a train of adversaries led by Tim Slade, with McLaughlin and Jack Le Brocq.
Pye and Holdsworth charged their way onto the tail of the group with a handful of laps to the flag, the former forcing his way past JLB at the hairpin to take away ninth with four laps to go, before moving past McLaughlin for eighth.
“To come through that many is really bittersweet,” Pye said.
“I just lost the clutch, it went in the first stop. Anti-stall kicked in and I couldn’t get it to switch off because I couldn’t get the clutch out.”
Whincup managed his tyres and his margin in the closing stages, while the battle for second also stabilised in favour of Lowndes, while Courtney similarly began to drop Reynolds.
Van Gisbergen maintains his points lead despite finishing sixth, but Reynolds moves to just 31 points adrift, while Whincup has now almost fully rebounded from his Adelaide disaster to sit third, just 59 points off his Red Bull teammate.
