Not for the first time this season Will Davison bounced back from a bad Saturday to grab the race win on the Sunday.
In doing so he regained the lead in the Championship fight from Jamie Whincup who could only manage fifth in race 11.
The drama began early with pole sitter Craig Lowndes having a slow getaway and fall back through the field at the start to ninth place.
The race had two early safety cars that shook the field up both on and off the track. With most of the field coming in on the first safety car it was always likely to be chaotic.
With the expected chaos in the pits those that elected to stay out lead by Jason Bright, were looking to have made a smart move. The biggest talking point may turn out to be Mark Winterbottom being investigated for potentially going slow in pit lane to slow the field.
Bright was then able to hold the lead until he pitted n lap 23 handing the lead to Davison from Whincup and Lowndes. Davison used the laps out front to turn up the pace and was able to rejoin in front of Bright when he pitted but the race was quickly again under safety car on lap 27 for debris on the circuit.
It had barely got underway again when more debris were left on circuit at turn one bringing the safety car out again. Lap 34 saw racing get underway gain with Davison leading Bright and Whincup.
The race then run in order until lap 40 when the recovering Lowndes got by Whincup with a prompt from the team to Whincup not to hold him up.
Whincup then was caught up in a battle with Shane van Gisbergen with van Gisbergen finally getting by for fourth.
Out front though Davison was able to hold Lowndes with Bright taking a fighting 3rd and final place on the podium.
For Davison it was a good bounce back on a weekend he called a test of character “This weekend has been a real test of character and after yesterday’s craziness I am so happy to win today. I was down on things last night and purposely started today with a clean slate as I couldn’t change what happened yesterday. That focus and the sheer hard work of the crew that had to do it tough last night to repair my car makes this a very sweet win. The race wasn’t easy what with safety cars, the busy pit stop at the start of the race and the setting sun. It is good to be back at the top of the points table and after learning some good lessons in the last couple of events we are really looking forward to going to the next block of races up north.”
Phillip Island 300 - 2012 V8 Supercars - Races 10&11
PHILLIP ISLAND GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT
Qualifying
01 Craig Lowndes, Team Vodafone, 1:32.3167
02 David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing Team, +0.1896
03 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford +0.2105
04 Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel FPR Ford +0.3903
05 Jason Bright, Team BOC, +0.4009
06 Jamie Whincup, Team Vodafone, +0.4153
07 Michael Patrizi, Tekno Autosports +0.5311
08 Shane Van Gisbergen, SP Tools Racing, +0.5901
09 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing, +0.6614
10 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports, +0.6644
Phillip Island 300 - V8 Supercars Championship - Races 10&11
PHILLIP ISLAND GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT
Race 11
01 Will Davison, Trading Post FPR Ford
02 Craig Lowndes, TeamVodafone
03 Jason Bright, Team BOC
04 Shane Van Gisbergen, SP Tools Racing
05 Jamie Whincup, TeamVodafone
06 Mark Winterbottom, Orrcon Steel FPR Ford
07 Jonathon Webb, Tekno Autosports
08 David Reynolds, The Bottle-O Racing Team
09 Lee Holdsworth, Irwin Racing
10 Garth Tander, Holden Racing Team
24 Fabian Coulthard, Lockwood Racing
