» V8s: Whincup, Bourdais claim Race 1 victory on the Gold Coast

Jamie Whincup and co-driver Sebastien Bourdais have claimed victory in the opening race of the ArmorAll 600 round on the Gold Coast.

After securing pole position in this morning’s qualifying session, the pair claimed a comfortable victory – on the back of an excellent opening stint by Bourdais – to ensure Whincup reclaimed the lead in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

With the rules dictating that teams had to run one member of their driver pairings for a minimum of 34 laps of the race, all of the teams elected to start with the guest drivers behind the wheel.

And when the racing got underway, Bourdais quickly disappeared into an early lead, which he built to over 10 seconds by the time he peeled into the pits on the 35th lap. Whincup emerged from his pit stop still effectively in the lead, but his advantage was twice whittled down courtesy of two Safety Car appearances. Nonetheless, Whincup kept his cool, and took his fifth Surfers Paradise win by just over two seconds.

The Team Vodafone pair’s main challenge came from the Ford Performance Racing duo of Will Davison and Mika Salo, while the sister FPR of Mark Winterbottom and Richard Lyons finished third, after the pair staged a hard-charging drive from 17th on the grid.

Greg Murphy and co-driver Oliver Gavin were headed for fourth place in their Kelly Racing Holden, but Kelly lost two places on the final lap, with the Dick Johnson Ford of Alan Moffat / Joey Hand claiming fourth, followed by the Walkinshaw Racing Holden of Fabian Coulthard and Patrick Long, who drove an impressive opening stint.

But it was a disastrous race for the #888 Triple 8 Holden of Craig Lowndes and co-driver Andy Priaulx, with the pair having lost out on the opportunity to post a better qualifying time when their car was grounded with an electrical problem.

Despite attention from the team’s mechanics after qualifying, the problem still hadn’t solved itself, as Priaulx stopped twice on his installation lap before they elected to start from the pit lane. The pair eventually got their race going some 20 laps into the race itself – Priaulx posting several fastest laps before Lowndes took over – but their run was ended with a punctured radiator.

Tomorrow’s second race will be preceded by another 30-minute qualifying session.

V8 Supercars 2011 ArmorAll Gold Coast 600 Race 1 Final Standings (100 laps):

	Driver	Team	Laps	Result
1.	J. Whincup / S. Bourdais	Triple 8 Race Engineering	100	2:13:21.5515
2.	W. Davison / M. Salo	Ford Performance Racing	100	+ 2.1902
3.	M. Winterbottom / R. Lyons	Ford Performance Racing	100	+ 2.4683
4.	J. Moffat / J. Hand	Dick Johnson Racing	100	+ 2.7719
5.	F. Coulthard / P. Long	Walkinshaw Racing	100	+ 5.8433
6.	G. Murphy / O. Gavin	Kelly Racing	100	+ 7.1366
7.	R. Kelly / J. Bergmeister	Kelly Racing	100	+ 12.4330
8.	M. Caruso / A. Farfus	Garry Rogers Motorsport	100	+ 13.6039
9.	J. Webb / G. De Ferran	Tekno Autosports	100	+ 15.0193
10.	L. Holdsworth / S. Pagenaud	Garry Rogers Motorsport	100	+ 16.8085
11.	G. Tander / R. Briscoe	Holden Racing Team	100	+ 16.8226
12.	T. Slade / H. Castroneves	Stone Brothers Racing	100	+ 17.0690
13.	T. Kelly / R. Westbrook	Kelly Racing	100	+ 17.4326
14.	J. Courtney / D. Turner	Holden Racing Team	100	+ 20.6768
15.	P. Dumbrell / C. Klien	Rod Nash / FPR	100	+ 22.0608
16.	S. van Gisbergen / E. Pirro	Stone Brothers Racing	100	+ 23.8801
17.	J. Bargwanna / A. Simonsen	Brad Jones Racing	100	+ 25.8878
18.	S. Owen / B. Said	Paul Morris Motorsport	100	+ 28.9258
19.	D. Reynolds / A. Tagliani	Kelly Racing	98	2 laps behind
20.	D. Fiore / G. Morbidelli	Triple F Racing	98	2 laps behind
21.	J. Bright / S. Sarrazin	Brad Jones Racing	97	3 laps behind
22.	R. Ingall / J. Magnussen	Paul Morris Motorsport	95	5 laps behind
23.	A. Davison / M. Lieb	Stone Brothers Racing	76	24 laps behind
	NOT CLASSIFIED
DNF.	T/ D’Alberto / V. Liuzzi	Tony D’Alberto Racing	75	Steering
DNF.	C. Lowndes / A. Priaulx	Triple 8 Race Engineering	52	Radiator
DNF.	S. Johnson / D. Müller	Dick Johnson Racing	24	Accident
DNF.	W. Luff / M. Franchitti	Lucas Dumbrell	14	Collision
DNS.	K. Reindler / F. Giovanardi	Britek / Brad Jones Racing		did not start