» V8s Gold Coast: Whincup pips van Gisbergen in thrilling second race

The closing laps of an extraordinary V8 Race Two

Team Vodafone’s Jamie Whincup has held out to take an extraordinary win in the second race of the Armor All Gold Coast 600 event in the V8 Supercars Championship, holding out a rampaging Shane van Gisbergen in the closing laps to take victory alongside co-driver Steve Owen.

Whincup spent the last few laps of the race – which you can watch on the clip in this article – getting roughed up by the increasingly-impressive New Zealander, who harried the Holden driver across the line as the duo rubbed panels in their quest for race victory.

As van Gisbergen tried every trick in the book to get by, Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom kept a close watching brief in third place, no doubt hoping to capitalise on any slip-up between the pair ahead. James Courtney brought his Ford home in fourth place, somewhat atoning for being stripped of a certain win in the first race (when he was issued a drive-through penalty).

Much of van Gisbergen’s success had to be put down to his co-driver John McIntyre, who drove a great opening stint of the race to give the Stone Brothers-run Ford the prospect of a win, which would have been the pair’s first-ever V8 Supercars win.

The race start had seen Winterbottom’s co-driver Luke Youdlen – who had been an instigator in the collision with Jacques Villeneuve in the first race this weekend – to cede an immediate lead to the sister car of Steven Richards and play the role of rear gunner.

But it all went pear-shaped when Richards pitted from the lead to make the compulsory driver change, only to find co-driver Will Power completely unprepared and half-suited up to race. The bungled pit stop also screwed Youlden’s race, as he was stacked behind Richards and had to queue until the pit bay was eventually cleared so he could swap with Winterbottom.

But Winterbottom put in another sterling effort to recover after their slow stop. He pulled a good pass on Courtney with only eight laps to run, and then set about closing up on the Whincup / van Gisbergen battle for the lead. Had he have had more laps in which to do it, he might well have had a genuine shot at a race win.

Coming in fifth was the combination of Paul Dumbrell and Jacques Villeneuve, with the 1997 F1 champion engaged in a little more ‘elbows out’ driving in his opening stint, but at least managed to keep all four wheels pointing in the same direction this time before handing over to Dumbrell.

Several of the other international drivers showed well in their second outing the on shortened Surfers Paradise street circuit, with Andy Priaulx and Dario Franchitti each running as high as second overall before they handed over to their respective co-drivers.

Multiple ChampCar title-winner Sébastien Bourdais again showed well in his maiden V8 Supercars outing, but he blotted his copybook by overshooting his pit bay and then reversing back towards his pit crew – an act that earned him a drive-through penalty for his efforts.

And with over 170,000 fans attending the three-day event, organisers are committing to a similar race arrangement for next season’s event, although they will be aiming for a full compliment of 29 international drivers to pair up with the field’s usual grid make-up. Certainly the timing of next year’s event – to fall on a weekend between Formula 1 Grands Prix – might entice a few more former F1 drivers to take a look.

Race 2 Final Classification (102 laps):

	Driver	Team	Result
1.	Whincup / S. Owen	Team Vodafone	2:29:37.7468
2.	van Gisbergen / McIntyre	SP Tools Racing	+ 0.2053
3.	Winterbottom / Youlden	Ford Performance Racing	+ 0.4859
4.	Courtney / Luff	Jim Beam Racing	+ 1.6360
5.	Dumbrell / Villeneuve	The Bottle-O Racing Team	+ 17.8541
6.	R. Kelly / O. Kelly	Jack Daniel’s Racing	+ 22.0830
7.	W. Davison / Briscoe	TOLL Holden Racing Team	+ 23.5568
8.	Ingall / Perkins	Supercheap Auto Racing	+ 23.8207
9.	Holdsworth / Ritter	Fujitsu Racing / GRM	+ 26.0763
10.	Lowndes / Priaulx	Team Vodafone	+ 30.8267
11.	Caruso / Long	Fujitsu Racing / GRM	+ 32.8737
12.	Coulthard / Reynolds	Bundaberg Red Racing	+ 35.6487
13.	S. Richards / Power	Ford Performance Racing	+ 36.2463
14.	Fiore / Morbidelli	Triple F Racing	+ 1:08.6125
15.	Murphy / Muller	Castrol Edge Racing	+ 1:09.9924
16.	Webb / Bourdais	Dick Johnson Racing	+ 1:12.5905
17.	D’Alberto / Monteiro	Centaur Racing	+ 1:31.5315
18.	Ricciardello / Wood	Stratco Racing	+ 1 lap
19.	Slade / Castroneves	Wilson Security Racing	+ 6 laps
20.	Bargwanna / Tagliani	ROCK Racing	+ 10 laps
	*Not Classified*
	Tander / McConville	TOLL Holden Racing Team	57 laps
	Johnson / Franchitti	Jim Beam Racing	38 laps
	Reindler / Giovanardi	Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing	37 laps
	J. Richards / Jones	Team BOC	34 laps
	T. Kelly / Dixon	Jack Daniel’s Racing	34 laps
	Pretty / Pruett	Gulf Western Oil Racing	28 laps
	Thompson / Salo	Bundaberg Red Racing	12 laps
	A. Davison / Brabham	IRWIN Racing	3 laps
	Bright / Menu	Trading Post Racing	0 laps