» V8s: Coulthard makes it two; Pye makes it out alive…

Kiwi driver Fabian Coulthard sealed the deal at the Symmons Plains track yesterday taking advantage of a late safety car appearance, chalking up his second V8 win at the Tasmania Microsoft Office 365 in race three for the weekend.

The Lockwood Racing Holden driver also won the 60/60 Super Sprint race on Saturday and, coming off fine form over the Albert Park weekend, converted the speed into Championship points.

Coulthard pipped Ford driver Mark Winterbottom three laps from the finish followed by James Courtney in the HRT Holden. The Drivers’ Championship lead is still in Jamie Whincup’s hands however, who came in fifth under the rear wing of Jason Bright in the BJR Holden. Will Davison, Jonathon Webb, Scott McLaughlin, Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander rounded out the top ten places.

Coulthard was naturally pretty stoked to claim his first two official wins this weekend.

“We got three fake ones at the Australian Grand Prix and it’s great to get one under the belt,” the New Zealander said. “We came in confident after the performance at the Grand Prix. You can’t ask for much more and the team did such a great job today.”

It was a well fought race, with lots of action for viewers. It almost ended tragically in fact, with the young Scott Pye crashing head-on into the wall in the final stages of the race.

It has been reported an issue with the brakes (i.e. they failed!), but fortunately Pye is fine and amazingly walked away with only sore joints. The Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport rookie said there was no warning before the brakes went.

“I’d been pumping (the brake pedal)… but I pumped it and it went to the floor, so there was nothing I could do… My eyes were dragged to that Armco wall and I knew I was going in.

“I saw the Armco wall took some of that impact and got pushed back. It’s a freak accident; it’s one of those things,” he lamented.

Pye will be out of contention for the Auckland race this weekend, but the team are hopeful they will be back for Perth.

“A big hit like that puts such a shockwave of force through the chassis that I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s stuff that’s damaged at the back of it,” team owner Lucas said afterwards.

“Until we have it back to an absolute shell we’re not going to know the extent of the damage.

“New Zealand is definitely out of the question but touch wood we’ll have it back for Perth.”

Subsequently, the race was temporarily halted behind the safety car and restarted with only a few laps to go. It was the race’s second restart after the full course yellows were brought out earlier in the race to clear the rear diffuser of Tim Slade’s Mercedes on the track.

Various cars took damage throughout the race that they will have to carry over or repair in the next few days before they head off across the seas to the New Zealand meet. Todd Kelly battled issues throughout the race and stopped quite early on Lap 20 with another engine failure in his Nissan Altima.

Lowndes, who was hoping to break the record for all-time wins, didn’t have a spectacular weekend and finished in eleventh place.

Jonny Reid from Wilson Security Dick John Racing, praised the format of the race nonetheless.

“The race format was really good and I’m sure the fans enjoyed it. The racing was absolutely crazy in the early laps of both legs with cars running door to door and some big dust clouds where cars were spearing off.”

We wish all the drivers and their teams the best of luck in getting their gear across for the next meet in only a few days! Stay tuned for more V8 news from RichardsF1.com!

2013 V8 Supercars Tasmania 365 – Race 3 Final Classification (42 laps):

	Driver	Entry / Team	Result
1.	Fabian Coulthard	Lockwood Racing / Brad Jones Racing	42:20.8286
2.	Mark Winterbottom	Pepsi Max Crew / Ford Performance Racing	+ 0.3675
3.	James Courtney	Holden Racing Team / TWR	+ 0.7774
4.	Jason Bright	Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing	+ 0.9615
5.	Jamie Whincup	Red Bull Racing AU / Triple 8 Engineering	+ 1.2493
6.	Will Davison	Pepsi Max Crew / Ford Performance Racing	+ 1.4900
7.	Jonathon Webb	Tekno Autosports	+ 2.5053
8.	Scott McLaughlin	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 2.6116
9.	Shane van Gisbergen	VIP Petfoods / Tekno Autosports	+ 3.1716
10.	Garth Tander	Holden Racing Team / TWR	+ 3.3883
11.	Craig Lowndes	Red Bull Racing AU / Triple 8 Engineering	+ 6.6000
12.	Alex Davison	Jeld-Wen Racing / Ford Performance Racing	+ 6.6640
13.	Lee Holdsworth	IRWIN Racing / Erebus Motorsport	+ 7.2724
14.	Alexandre Prémat	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 7.7247
15.	James Moffat	Norton 360 Racing / Nissan Motorsport	+ 9.9777
16.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s Racing / Nissan Motorsport	+ 10.4068
17.	Michael Caruso	Norton 360 Racing / Nissan Motorsport	+ 10.8354
18.	Tim Slade	Heavy Haulage Racing / Erebus Motorsport	+ 11.5734
19.	David Wall	Wilson Security Racing / Brad Jones Racing	+ 11.8440
20.	Jonny Reid	Wilson Security Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 13.3473
21.	Dean Fiore	Dodo Insurance / Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport	+ 14.8068
22.	Tim Blanchard	Wilson Security Racing / Dick Johnson Racing	+ 1 lap
23.	Maro Engel	SP Tools Racing / Erebus Motorsport	+ 1 lap
24.	David Reynolds	Bottle-O Racing / Ford Performance Racing	+ 1 lap
25.	Tony D’Alberto	HIFLEX Racing / Tony D’Alberto Racing	+ 1 lap
26.	Russell Ingall	SuperCheap Auto Racing / TWR	+ 5 laps
	Not Classified
DNF.	Scott Pye	EKOL Racing / Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport	32 laps
DNF.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s Racing / Nissan Motorsport	20 laps