» V8s Sandown: Courtney regains championship momentum with crucial Race 2 win

V8 Supercars championship leader James Courtney has seemingly arrested his slide in form and luck over the last few rounds of the season with an excellent win in an interrupted and shortened second race of the Norton 360 Challenge at Melbourne’s Sandown Raceway.

The Jim Beam Racing driver has seen his championship lead steadily whittled away over the last few rounds as a combination of poor form and luck have allowed championship rivals Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom back into the championship mix.

And again it seemed that Courtney would lose more of his points margin to his rivals as he ran behind them in the opening stages of the race, which was led by Russell Ingall, who backed up his Race 1 pace with another strong showing in his Holden.

But Courtney’s fortunes changed when the race was red-flagged at half-distance after a huge accident between Michael Caruso and Will Davison: the former ran into the back of the latter at the end of the back straight, resulting in another colossal accident at the same spot where Garth Tander had caused a red flag stoppage in Race 1.

Fortunately both drivers were unhurt – although their cars were comprehensively destroyed – and the race got underway with a reshuffled grid for the remaining (shortened) 26 laps with Shave van Gisbergen and Dean Fiore occupying the front row by dint of their running positions at the time of the stoppage, when many drivers had used the stoppage to pit for fresh tyres.

But Courtney was back on the attack at the resumption of the race, overtaking Winterbottom for the lead with 16 laps to go en route to a well-earned victory.

Winterbottom had to use the rest of his racing laps to fend off the advances of Jamie Whincup, who himself had Lee Holdsworth chewing on his rear bumper.

Steven Johnson and Tim Slade finished right up the order in fifth and sixth, having benefits enormously from the race stoppage to vault up the order, while polesitter (and Race 1 winner) Paul Dumbrell climbed up to seventh place after finding himself starting 18th at the restart.

The championship’s final event will be the Telstra Sydney 500 in a fortnight’s time, staged on a makeshift street circuit around the former Olympic Games complex. With 300 points up for grabs, Courtney’s 53-point lead over Whincup is certainly pretty handy, while Winterbottom will be praying for issues to his two chief rivals, as he is 203 points behind Courtney in the title race.

Race 2 Final Classification:

	Driver	Team	Result
1.	James Courtney	Jim Beam Racing	1:51:43.6234
2.	Mark Winterbottom	Ford Performance Racing	+ 1.5543
3.	Jamie Whincup	Team Vodafone	+ 1.8574
4.	Lee Holdsworth	Fujitsu Racing / GRM	+ 1.8616
5.	Steven Johnson	Jim Beam Racing	+ 8.8961
6.	Tim Slade	Wilson Security Racing	+ 8.9333
7.	Paul Dumbrell	The Bottle-O Racing Team	+ 11.6387
8.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s Racing	+ 12.9653
9.	Jonathon Webb	Dick Johnson Racing	+ 15.3057
10.	Greg Murphy	Castrol Edge Racing	+ 16.1227
11.	Craig Lowndes	Team Vodafone	+ 20.6449
12.	Fabian Coulthard	Bundaberg Red Racing	+ 25.5798
13.	Russell Ingall	Supercheap Auto Racing	+ 26.5637
14.	Tony D’Alberto	Centaur Racing	+ 27.5928
15.	Steven Richards	Ford Performance Racing	+ 32.5498
16.	Andrew Thompson	Bundaberg Red Racing	+ 34.3127
17.	Garth Tander	TOLL Holden Racing Team	+ 35.8038
18.	Dean Fiore	Triple F Racing	+ 41.9568
19.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s Racing	+ 43.5908
20.	Jason Bargwanna	ROCK Racing	+ 44.1410
21.	Alex Davison	IRWIN Racing	+ 44.3350
22.	Karl Reindler	Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing	+ 1 lap
23.	Tony Ricciardello	Stratco Racing	+ 2 laps
24.	Jason Bright	Trading Post Racing	+ 9 laps
	*Not Classified*
	Shane van Gisbergen	SP Tools Racing	58 laps
	Andrew Jones	Team BOC	37 laps
	Will Davison	TOLL Holden Racing Team	31 laps
	Michael Caruso	Fujitsu Racing / GRM	31 laps
	Warren Luff	Gulf Western Oil Racing	19 laps