Whincup inherits lead to win at Symmons Plains

Red Bull’s V8 Supercars star Craig Lowndes was looking for his 100^th career win at Symmons Plains today, but it was his teammate Jamie Whincup who inherited victory.

Lowndes started on pole for the third time this weekend. However, as the green flag dropped, things took a turn for the worse.

Reynolds robbed

David Reynolds, who started in P2, jumped Lowndes at the start and took over the lead. However, Lowndes didn’t give Reynolds enough room heading into Turn 1 and made contact. As a result, Reynolds was forced off of the track and went front first to last on the first corner.

Lowndes was given a drive-thru penalty for the contact.

For Reynolds, however, he was robbed of a strong finish which he was in desperate need of considering that he’s been effectively put in notice to perform this year by Prodrive Racing Australia.

Enter Whincup

With Lowndes and Reynolds out of the way, that opened the door wide open for the defending champion, Jamie Whincup, who took over the lead of the race and never looked back as he sailed home for the win. With Whincup winning Race 6, he takes over the lead of the championship as he accrues his 91^st career victory and his 11^th at Symmons Plains.

The smoking Mercedes

After an eventful weekend, there was even more heartbreak for Erebus Motorsports driver, Will Davison, who started today’s race in fourth. As the event got underway, he made contact with Shane van Gisbergen who was moving to avoid Reynolds.

The contact caused mechanical damage for Davison who was then forced to park the Mercedes in the garage. This only added to the devastating season Erebus has been experiencing thus far with both Davison and Ash Walsh suffering from numerous mechanical issues.

Although Davison would eventually rejoin the race, he would do so several laps down.

Mostert comes through to second

Although Whincup was the obvious beneficiary of the Lowndes/Reynolds incident, this also allowed Chaz Mostert to gain ground. After starting in sixth, the 2014 Bathurst champion was able to fight his way through the field to catch Whincup. However, the young driver was unable to maintain the pace of Whincup but held on to finish the race in second.

Van Gisbergen rounded out the podium in third as Garth Tander and Mark Winterbottom, who started eighth and ninth, finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Although the drive-thru penalty was devastating for Lowndes, he mounted a stellar comeback and was able to complete the race in sixth. He was followed by Scott McLaughlin, Andre Heimgartner and Fabian Coulthard with James Courtney rounding out the top-ten.

Full results for Race 6 can be found here.

Championship standings  

With Whincup now on the top of the championship, Courtney currently finds himself in second but only 19 points behind. Lowndes’ success this weekend allowed him to move up to third with Garth Tander and Shane van Gisbergen filling out the top-five.

The drivers now have a bit of a break as the next V8 Supercars championship event takes place in Perth on May 1-3.