» V8s: Lowndes wins in Sydney, while disaster strikes for points leader Whincup

Brilliant tactics and outright speed combined to give Craig Lowndes his third win on the trot as the V8 Supercars Championship made its long-awaited return to the newly-renamed Sydney Motorsport Park.

The TeamVodafone driver’s fortunes were in direct contrast to those of team-mate and incoming championship leader Jamie Whincup, who had a disastrous race and lost the outright points lead to Ford driver Mark Winterbottom.

Despite a last-minute run to snatch pole position, Whincup’s race fell apart almost from the get-go. The reigning champion fluffed his start and fell to eighth place, while fellow front-row starter Jonathon Webb skipped away to an early race lead, being the only frontrunner to opt to start the 36-lap race on Dunlop’s quicker soft-compound tyres.

The Tekno Autosport driver quickly skipped away to an early lead while the chasing pack squabbled behind him in the early laps.

Lowndes elected to remove himself from the fight with a bold strategy gamble, switching to the soft tyres on just the eleventh lap and giving himself a long run to the chequered flag on this not-so-durable rubber.

But it proved to be a masterstroke. When the rest of the field had pitted, Lowndes was at the front of the chasing pack and quickly set about catching and passing the now hard-shod Webb for the effective lead.

From that point, he was never headed, and stroked it home to win by 1.4 seconds from Mark Winterbottom, who clamed the championship lead for the first time after Whincup’s race completely fell apart in the closing stages.

While Whincup had managed to scramble back into fourth place after the pit stop had shaken out the order, he suffered a delaminating tyre in the closing stages.

Rather than electing to pit for a replacement tyre – a move that would simply hurt his prospects for tomorrow’s qualifying and race sessions, as he would have fewer tyres at his disposal – Whincup tried to limp the car home, plummeting to 23rd by the chequered flag.

Webb’s strategy gamble didn’t pay off either, and the Teko driver progressively dropped down the order to finish in ninth place.

Behind the Lowndes-Winterbottom scrap for the lead, Winterbottom’s FPR team-mate Will Davison finished third, while the Walkinshaw Performance stable claimed an impressive 4-5-6, with Garth Tander and James Courtney showing impressive race pace to sandwich their stablemate Russell Ingall in the final classification.

2012 V8 Supercars Sydney Motorsport Park 360 – Race 1 Result (36 laps):

	Driver	Entry / Team	Laps	Result
1.	Craig Lowndes	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	36	56:17:3122
2.	Mark Winterbottom	Orrcon Steel / Ford Performance Racing	36	+ 1.4611
3.	Will Davison	Trading Post / Ford Performance Racing	36	+ 13.4500
4.	Garth Tander	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	36	+ 21.0360
5.	Russell Ingall	Supercheap Auto / Walkinshaw Racing	36	+ 21.2195
6.	James Courtney	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	36	+ 26.7308
7.	Shane van Gisbergen	SP Tools / Stone Brothers Racing	36	+ 30.8694
8.	Michael Caruso	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	36	+ 32.0265
9.	Jonathon Webb	Tekno Autosports	36	+ 32.7730
10.	Jason Bright	Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing	36	+ 32.9410
11.	Tony D’Alberto	HIFLEX Racing / Tony D’Alberto Racing	36	+ 35.8713
12.	Fabian Coulthard	Lockwood Racing / Brad Jones Racing	36	+ 36.1584
13.	David Reynolds	The Bottle-O Racing Team / Rod Nash	36	+ 38.7223
14.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	36	+ 40.9855
15.	Michael Patrizi	Tekno Autosports	36	+ 47.6950
16.	Tim Slade	Lucky 7 Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	36	+ 49.9326
17.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	36	+ 51.0568
18.	David Wall	Wilson Security / Brad Jones Racing	36	+ 55.1999
19.	James Moffat	Team Norton / Dick Johnson Racing	36	+ 1:02.5246
20.	Steve Owen	VIP Petfoods / Dick Johnson Racing	36	+ 1:09.6493
21.	Taz Douglas	Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport	36	+ 1:12.9488
22.	Karl Reindler	Fair Dinkum Sheds / Kelly Racing	36	+ 1:14.5091
23.	Jamie Whincup	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Racing	36	+ 1:19.7271
24.	Jacques Villeneuve	Pepsi Max Crew / Kelly Racing	36	+ 1:28.4113
25.	Dean Fiore	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	35	1 lap behind
26.	Lee Holdsworth	Irwin Racing / Stone Brothers Racing	35	1 lap behind
27.	Steven Johnson	Jim Beam Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	35	1 lap behind
28.	Alexandre Prémat	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	34	2 laps behind