Winterbottom And Lyons Take Gold Coast Race Two Victory

Mark Winterbottom and Richard Lyons have taken Ford Performance Racing's first win of the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship in today’s final and controversial race of the Armor All Gold Coast 600.

Winterbottom completed a brilliant drive to win the second of the weekend's 300km races on the Surfers Paradise street circuit to turn around what has been a challenging season, but it was the issue of kerb-hopping that dominated the day's racing.

In a repeat of yesterday's race, Sébastien Bourdais led away from pole, with every team opting to run their international driver at the start, barring Westrac Racing who started with regular driver Dean Fiore. Having stretched a 2.6 second margin over TeamVodafone team-mate Andy Priaulx who had made a great start from fifth to second at the first corner, Bourdais pitted at the end of lap 34 (the minimum number of laps required by international drivers to complete) to hand over to Jamie Whincup.

A lap later, Priaulx pitted for Craig Lowndes with the team short-fuelling the #888 car to leap-frog Whincup. But Whincup soon had the spot back with an assertive move on Lowndes' out-lap, leaving Winterbottom a full 20 seconds back by the time the safety car appeared for debris on lap 44.

Ten laps later, Fiore's co-driver Gianni Morbidelli was turned by Wilson Security Racing's Tony D’Alberto, hitting the wall and triggering the second safety car. Facing the wrong way, Morbidelli instructed by stewards, turned around but straight into the path of Team BOC driver Jason Bright as he rounded the blind corner. The resulting contact put both cars of the race.

With the safety car coinciding with the pit-window, most drivers headed in for their final fuel stop. This played into Winterbottom's hands and he made the jump on Lowndes who was forced to queue behind Whincup, dropping him from second to 12th. Lowndes lost out again after stopping for tyres and he tumbled down a further eight places to 20th by the chequered flag.

Up to second, Winterbottom hunted down Whincup making his move with just eight of the 102 laps remaining. He then put space between himself and Whincup before clinching the win and breaking Ford’s four-month race win drought.

“Soft tyres have been our weakness but now we’ve got two podiums and a win so the boys have done a fantastic job,” said Winterbottom after the race.

“It was hairy, that was a lot of work. It was one of the great races and I loved it!”

But Whincup was still the weekend's big winner. With six races remaining, he extends his championship standings lead to 143 points over team-mate Lowndes.

Lee Holdsworth and Simon Pagenaud claimed the final podium position from Greg Murphy and Oliver Gavin after a heated battle which saw the Fujitsu Racing and Pepsi Max Crew-backed Commodores' trading positions several times in the second half of the race. Jack Daniel's Racing's Rick Kelly and co-driver Jorg Bergmeister took fifth, while Toll Holden Racing Team's James Courtney finished sixth despite co-driver Darren Turner receiving a contentious kerb hopping drive-through. Finishing seventh, eighth and ninth respectively were VIP Petfoods' Steve Owen/Boris Said, Supercheap Auto Racing's Russell Ingall/Jan Magnussen and Jack Daniel's Racing's Todd Kelly/Richard Westbrook while Lucky 7 Racing'sTim Slade and Helio Castroneves rounded out the top ten despite breaking an anti-roll bar early in the race.

But it had been in the middle of the field where controversy had reigned. A new sensor system designed to prevent drivers from short-cutting the corners broke down midway through the race and several drivers copped drive-through penalties for breaching the “kerb hop” rule, before the sensor was deemed to be malfunctioning and switched off altogether by officials.

After the race, Winterbottom's co-driver Northern Irishman Richard Lyons who had been drafted in at short-notice after Will Power was injured in the Las Vegas IndyCar crash that claimed the life of Dan Wheldon, paid tribute to his friend:

“To my friend Dan Wheldon who passed away, I’ve done this one for you mate,” said Lyons.

And after claiming the win alongside Whincup in race one on Saturday and second in Sunday’s race two, Sébastien Bourdais was named the best performing international driver. He was presented with the Dan Wheldon Memorial trophy, named in honour of the two-time Indy 500 winner.

“I think it's been a great showing for Dan, I’m sure he would have loved it,” an emotional Bourdais said.

“I’m so sad he wasn’t a part of it this weekend, this means a whole lot.”

The V8 Supercars Championship heads to Tasmania in three weeks' time for the Falken Tasmania Challenge at the Symmons Plains circuit.

Race 21 Results:

Pos	Entrant	Driver	Vehicle	Fastest Lap	Fastest Lap Time	Race Time	Laps	Points
1	Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon	Mark Winterbottom / Richard Lyons	Falcon FG	72	01:11:3618	02:14:08:1572	102	150
2	TeamVodafone	Jamie Whincup / Sebastian Bourdais	Commodore VE2	71	01:11:2264	02:14:09:7136	102	138
3	Fujitsu Racing GRM	Lee Holdsworth / Simon Pagenaud	Commodore VE2	76	01:11:5300	02:14:11:2614	102	129
4	Pepsi Max Crew	Greg Murphy / Oliver Gavin	Commodore VE2	75	01:11:4242	02:14:16:8560	102	120
5	Jack Daniel’s Racing	Rick Kelly / Jorg Bergmeister	Commodore VE2	76	01:11:6639	02:14:19:4365	102	111
6	Toll Holden Racing Team	James Courtney / Darren Turner	Commodore VE2	65	01:11:4998	02:14:20:1081	102	102
7	VIP Petfoods	Steve Owen / Boris Said	Commodore VE2	76	01:11:1808	02:14:21:6450	102	96
8	Supercheap Auto Racing	Russell Ingall / Jan Magnussen	Commodore VE2	65	01:11:0795	02:14:23:0963	102	90
9	Jack Daniel’s Racing	Todd Kelly / Richard Westbrook	Commodore VE2	72	01:11:3129	02:14:23:4926	102	84
10	Lucky 7 Racing	Tim Slade / Helio Castroneves	Falcon FG	84	01:11:4850	02:14:23:7146	102	78
11	Stratco Racing	David Reynolds / Alex Tagliani	Commodore VE2	84	01:11:4621	02:14:25:2390	102	72
12	Jim Beam Racing	Steven Johnson / Dirk Muller	Falcon FG	76	01:11:6283	02:14:25:7292	102	69
13	Mother Energy Racing Team	Jonathon Webb / Gil de Ferran	Falcon FG	78	01:11:3920	02:14:25:8078	102	66
14	Trading Post FPR Falcon	Will Davison / Mika Salo	Falcon FG	102	01:10:0851	02:14:27:8610	102	63
15	Bundaberg Racing	Fabian Coulthard / Patrick Long	Commodore VE2	94	01:10:6150	02:14:29:9115	102	60
16	SP Tools Racing	Shane van Gisbergen / Emanuele Pirro	Falcon FG	82	01:10:4412	02:14:35:2921	102	57
17	Jana Living Racing	Jason Bargwanna / Allan Simonsen	Commodore VE2	90	01:10:6329	02:14:47:1937	102	54
18	Irwin Racing	Alex Davison / Marc Lieb	Falcon FG	89	01:11:6034	02:14:51:5961	102	51
19	Wilson Security Racing	Tony D’Alberto / Vitantonio Liuzzi	Falcon FG	94	01:10:8161	02:14:52:1149	102	48
20	TeamVodafone	Craig Lowndes / Andy Priaulx	Commodore VE2	97	01:11:0606	02:15:01:2709	102	45
21	Fujitsu Racing GRM	Michael Caruso / Augusto Farfus Jr	Commodore VE2	49	01:11:8587	02:14:47:7245	99	42
22	Fair Dinkum Sheds Racing	Karl Reindler / Fabrizio Giovanardi	Commodore VE2	66	01:13:2228	02:15:06:6059	98	39
23	Toll Holden Racing Team	Garth Tander / Ryan Briscoe	Commodore VE2	64	01:11:5843	02:14:27:1564	82	36
DNF	Jim Beam Racing	James Moffat / Joey Hand	Falcon FG	73	01:11:5764	01:54:42:4298	77	0
DNF	Westrac Racing	Dean Fiore / Gianni Morbidelli	Falcon FG	51	01:13:4850	01:10:11:7701	51	0
DNF	Team Boc	Jason Bright / Sarrazin Stephane	Commodore VE2	49	01:13:0062	01:11:49:3570	51	0
DNF	Gulf Western Oil Racing	Warren Luff / Marino Franchitti	Commodore VE2	10	01:14:4973	39:40:4682	15	0
DNF	The Bottle-O Racing Team	Paul Dumbrell / Christian Klein	Falcon FG	–	00:00:0000	00:00:0000	0	0