» V8s: Lowndes on pole for Phillip Island Race 2

Former V8 Supercars champion Craig Lowndes has claimed pole position for today’s final race of the Phillip Island 300, just hours after being handed a position drop by event stewards for a driving infringement in yesterday’s first race.

The TeamVodafone driver was found to have overtaken two rival drivers under yellow-flag conditions in yesterday’s race, and stewards elected to demote him two positions after a hearing with the veteran driver. The result meant that Lowndes was bumped to fifteenth place in the final classification.

With today’s race a longer 200-kilometre event, Lowndes booked his place in pole position with a late lap of 1:32.3167 to pip the factory Ford Performance Racing trio of David Reynolds, Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom for top honours.

As was the case in yesterday’s qualifying session, Reynolds held top spot until he was relegated by a better lap, but he again will enjoy a front-row start in his Bottle-O sponsored Ford Falcon.

Davison and Winterbottom will start from the second row, ahead of the ever-improving Jason Bright and series leader Jamie Whincup, whose Holden Commodore is freshly repaired after his late-race accident with Davison yesterday.

The qualifying session saw another excellent performance from the little Tekno team, with Michael Patrizi qualifying seventh-fastest and team-mate Jonathon Webb tenth. The pair sandwich New Zealand racers Shane van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard.

Van Gisbergen’s top-ten result aside, it was a less than satisfactory session for his Stone Brothers Racing team-mates Lee Holdsworth and Tim Slade, who qualified twelfth-fastest and fifteenth-fastest respectively.

The TOLL Holden Racing Team duo of Garth Tander and James Courtney also couldn’t get a fast enough lap together, and they will start thirteenth and twenty-third respectively.

Today’s race gets underway at 3:05PM local time (GMT+10).

2012 V8 Supercars Phillip Island 300 – Race 2 Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Entry / Team	Result
1.	Craig Lowndes	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	1:32.3167
2.	David Reynolds	The Bottle-O Racing Team / Rod Nash	+ 0.1896
3.	Will Davison	Trading Post / Ford Performance Racing	+ 0.2105
4.	Mark Winterbottom	Orrcon Steel / Ford Performance Racing	+ 0.3903
5.	Jason Bright	Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing	+ 0.4009
6.	Jamie Whincup	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	+ 0.4153
7.	Michael Patrizi	Tekno Autosports	+ 0.5311
8.	Shane van Gisbergen	SP Tools / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 0.5901
9.	Fabian Coulthard	Lockwood Racing / Brad Jones Racing	+ 0.6614
10.	Jonathon Webb	Tekno Autosports	+ 0.6644
11.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	+ 0.7052
12.	Lee Holdsworth	Irwin Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 0.7329
13.	Garth Tander	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	+ 0.7419
14.	Steven Johnson	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 0.7615
15.	Tim Slade	Lucky 7 Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 0.7622
16.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	+ 0.9567
17.	Steve Owen	VIP Petfoods / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 0.9899
18.	Michael Caruso	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 1.1107
19.	Taz Douglas	Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport	+ 1.2150
20.	Greg Murphy	Pepsi Max Crew / Kelly Racing	+ 1.2255
21.	David Wall	Wilson Security / Brad Jones Racing	+ 1.2547
22.	Karl Reindler	Fair Dinkum Sheds / Kelly Racing	+ 1.3163
23.	James Courtney	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	+ 1.3432
24.	Russell Ingall	Supercheap Auto / Walkinshaw Racing	+ 1.3477
25.	James Moffat	Team Norton / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 1.3518
26.	Tony D’Alberto	HIFLEX Racing / Tony D’Alberto Racing	+ 1.4082
27.	Dean Fiore	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 1.4251
28.	Alexandre Prémat	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 1.5738