» V8s: Whincup wins Darwin opener

Defending series champion Jamie Whincup has regained a narrow lead in the V8 Supercars standings with a win in today’s opening race of the SkyCity Triple Crown at Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway.

Whincup’s win broke a seven-race-long winning strike held by the Ford Performance Racing team.

This was despite the TeamVodafone driver making a poor getaway in his Holden Commodore, falling from third to fifth on the opening lap. Nonetheless, he was able to pick his way through to the front of the field – passing David Reynolds for the lead on Lap 20 – before making his one and only pit stop during the 42-lap race.

Having made the required switched to Dunlop’s softer tyre, Whincup managed his tyre wear for the remaining 19 laps to win by just over five seconds from pole-sitter Will Davison and his Ford Performance Racing team-mate Mark Winterbottom. While both FPR drivers ran the same hard-soft tyre strategy as Whincup, neither had quite the pace over each stint to mount a challenge to Whincup.

It was a largely incident-free race, save for a multi-car tangle on the third lap that brought out the Safety Car. This was triggered by Tony D’Alberto spinning Michael Caruso around at Turn 6 on the third lap of the race, tipping the GRM Holden driver into a nose-to-nose collision with Kelly Racing’s stand-in driver David Russell.

Craig Lowndes’ poor qualifying performance put him vulnerable to this very sort of melee, and the former champion was also turned around in the contact, giving him an even steeper mountain to climb to get a decent result.

But it was to Lowndes’ credit that he knuckled down and drove a sensational race on a two-stop strategy to charge through the field and finish fourth. He finished ahead of David Reynolds, Tim Slade, Shane van Gisbergen, Garth Tander, Jonathon Webb and Lee Holdsworth, who rounded out the top ten.

2012 V8 Supercars SkyCity Triple Crown Darwin – Race 1 Result (42 laps):

	Driver	Entry / Team	Laps	Result
1.	Jamie Whincup	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	42	52:26.0743
2.	Will Davison	Trading Post / Ford Performance Racing	42	+ 5.8763
3.	Mark Winterbottom	Orrcon Steel / Ford Performance Racing	42	+ 6.6733
4.	Craig Lowndes	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	42	+ 8.8248
5.	David Reynolds	The Bottle-O Racing Team / Rod Nash	42	+ 17.1312
6.	Tim Slade	Lucky 7 Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	42	+ 19.7350
7.	Shane van Gisbergen	SP Tools / Stone Brothers Racing	42	+ 23.3114
8.	Garth Tander	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	42	+ 25.5085
9.	Jonathon Webb	Tekno Autosports	42	+ 30.4443
10.	Lee Holdsworth	Irwin Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	42	+ 31.2394
11.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	42	+ 39.1578
12.	James Courtney	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	42	+ 40.5351
13.	Jason Bright	Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing	42	+ 43.1579
14.	Steve Owen	VIP Petfoods / Dick Johnson Racing	42	+ 47.8249
15.	Tony D’Alberto	HIFLEX Racing / Tony D’Alberto Racing	42	+ 49.1750
16.	Michael Patrizi	Tekno Autosports	42	+ 49.1990
17.	Karl Reindler	Fair Dinkum Sheds / Kelly Racing	42	+ 56.9897
18.	Steven Johnson	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	42	+ 1:06.2921
19.	Dean Fiore	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	42	+ 1:07.7022
20.	David Wall	Wilson Security / Brad Jones Racing	42	+ 1:08.4552
21.	James Moffat	Team Norton / Dick Johnson Racing	42	+ 1:12.5011
22.	Alexandre Prémat	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	41	+ 1 lap
23.	Russell Ingall	Supercheap Auto / Walkinshaw Racing	41	+ 1 lap
24.	Fabian Coulthard	Lockwood Racing / Brad Jones Racing	38	+ 4 laps
	Not Classified
DNF.	Taz Douglas	Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport	25	25 laps
DNF.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	9	9 laps
DNF.	Michael Caruso	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	3	3 laps
DNF.	David Russell	Pepsi Max Crew / Kelly Racing	2	2 laps