Jamie Whincup has continued his perfect start to the V8 Supercar season, taking a strong win in Bahrain to make it 3 from 3.
The Team Vodafone Holden driver once again converted his pole into a race win, in a stunning start for the team after the offseason switch to the Holden Commodore.
We have had a great run,” Whincup said. “To win in Abu Dhabi was huge but to come here and win is really something else.
“I know it looked easy, but we were working hard. Frosty really pushed us today.
“We really set our day up today with our amazing qualifying run this morning and from there our car was excellent in the race and our strategy was spot on,” Whincup explained.
Also having a solid start to the year, all be it not quite as good as Whincup, is Mark Winterbottom who took second place some 3.5 seconds behind Whincup. The result leaves him second in the Championship standings.
Winterbottom was delighted with the recovery from a poor opening day "Yesterday I was P24 so we’ve come a long way from where we were yesterday,” he noted.
“And when you do that you obviously don’t nail the set-up straight away but the tyres hung in there reasonably well but we’ll tune it again for tomorrow and keep progressing and keep learning.
“We’re definitely stronger than what we were last year and we’ve only just started so who knows what we will do when we come out tomorrow.”
Rounding out the podium was Craig Lowndes for the 888 racing team “Coming back through the field is not ideal but thankfully this is a track that lends itself to passing,” Lowndes said.
“I am delighted with another podium however I am disappointed with my top ten shootout result.
“Another poor top ten run made our life difficult but again the guys came up with a car that was quite aggressive and allowed me to attack a few people,” he added.
Garth Tander proved that the Toll Holden Racing Commodore will be on the pace with a solid fourth, starting the recovery process from the season opener. Tander was followed home by Shane van Gisbergen who was not able to make the most of starting from second on the grid. After the race van Gisbergen reflected that tyre problems had plagued the Stone Brothers racing outfit
“Winterbottom got me on the start and I managed to hang in there with him for the first five or so laps but then the tyres went off so much and his didn’t. Most the guys around me were in the same boat for but the cars ahead were just really good on their tyres.
“We were four seconds a lap slower and were doing 11’s at one point which made it pretty hard, considering I qualified with a 2:04 so that’s a massive difference. It felt like I was on ice out there.
“The car is obviously good in qualifying so we have no problems there we just need to make sure the car looks after its tyres better, we were not far off the fastest lap in the race but we need to work on carrying that speed over the whole race.”
Top 10
1. Jamie Whincup, 150pts
2. Mark Winterbottom, 138pts
3. Craig Lowndes, 129pts
4. Garth Tander, 120pts
5. Shane Van Gisbergen, 111pts
6. James Courtney, 102pts
7. Russell Ingall, 96pts
8. Will Davison, 90pts
9. Rick Kelly, 84pts
10.Michael Caruso, 78pts
Championship Top 10 after Race 3
1. Jamie Whincup, 450pts
2. Mark Winterbottom, 405pts
3. Craig Lowndes, 378pts
4. Shane Van Gisbergen, 342pts
5. James Courtney, 324pts
6. Rick Kelly, 282pts
7. Lee Holdsworth, 276pts
8. Steven Johnson, 224pts
9. Michael Caruso, 210pts
10. Russell Ingall, 204pts
