V8 Supercars Phillip Island SuperSprint – races
Interesting and intense V8 Supercars weekend at beautiful Phillip Island track. Lots of on track excitements and few incidents as we move closer to the season final. The championship wasn’t decided here and the Pepsi Max Crew driver Mark Winterbottom (aka Frosty) is still in the lead but Craig Lowdens is very close…
After the practice sessions on Friday and one on Saturday morning, the qualifying came and this is where real battle for pole position started. There was two short qualifying sessions (10 minutes each) which determined starting positions for two sprint races on the Saturday afternoon. Jamie Whincup was fastest on first session scoring pole position for first race and Scott McLaughlin did same for second race. Championship leader Mark Winterbottom didn’t do so well but he was still able to score 5 and 6th starting place in afternoon’s races. However, despite being on pole position, Whincup didn’t managed to win the first sprint race but his teammate Lowdens did which brought him another 75 points in championship battle. Almost the same thing happened in second race, when Whincup won and Lowdens was third. In both races Winterbottom did not had podium finish.
However, Frosty has woken up for qualifying session for the third and final race of the weekend. Winterbottom managed to get the pole position for 45 laps, 200 kilometers long race on Sunday. But, unfortunately for him, things didn’t worked out as he planed. Lowndes lost ground to Championship leader Mark Winterbottom off the start of the 200km race, but clever strategy had the Red Bull driver at the front of the pack after the two required pit stops. Lowndes won by 1.97 seconds over Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin and taking his 11th career win at Phillip Island. Ford driver, Mark Winterbottom was should finish on third place but in last lap was passed by Jamie Whincup in somewhat controversial maneuver. Lowdens won the maximum points for this race but Winterbottom is still the overall lead in the championship. So, after this intense weekend it is clear that championship will be decided in Sydney. Beside the Whincup-Winterbottom pass there was another incident between Shane Van Gisbergen and David Reynolds when Van Gisbergen after SVG spun him out of contention in the first race at Phillip Island. This move by Van Gisbergen was condemned by all.
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Stay tuned for more and click HERE for full results of this racing weekend:
Photo:v8supercars.au.co
