V8 SuperCars – Surfers Paradise Wrap Up

The problem with predictions is that there is always a big chance you will get it wrong and have egg on your face.

In Friday’s post I assured you that Craig Lowndes would win this race with Ford teams fairing well in the top 5, I even said that Steven Johnson was a smokey for the weekend.
I think I need to clean that crystal ball, must be dirty.

Let’s look at the weekend. In the qualifying session it was all Holdens. With Rick Kelly and Garth Tander taking the coveted P1 and P2 spots, the top 5 where separated by just under 0.6 of a second. Ford driver Mark Winterbottom and Jason Bright from FPV qualifying 3rd and 5th respectively.

The Top Ten Shootout was held on the Saturday, with the weather changing from dry track to a wet track to a drying track. The session looked as though it was going to heavily favour the top three as the track was in a mess for the early competitors for the shoot out. The track was still wet in parts and an Indy car dropped oil on two sections of the track making conditions very tricky.

Fortunately for Craig Lowndes, who qualified 7th was able to jump up the queue due to some mistakes by drivers, and more importantly Rick Kelly failed to finish his shootout lap. This meant that Craig had gained the upper hand, with Surfers being notoriously a track that is hard to pass on.

The weekend didn’t pan out so well for Craig after the shootout. He unfortunately was penalised in race one after being found guilty of warming his tyres between Turn 12 and the start grid on the observation lap. Lowndes was relegated from 5th to 11th.

Craig was also penalized for short cutting the circuit after an altercation with Russell Ingall in the final race. Lowndes’s subsequent drive through penalty pushed him from 5th back to 14th and 10th overall for the round, meaning he gave up valuable points to Rick Kelly.

“This round was always going be the toughest of the four remaining and it was certainly true to form,” Lowndes said.

“We lost a lot of points this weekend and can not afford to have another round like this one.”

The placing’s at the end of the Surfer’s round where:

Top Ten Round Results

1st Todd Kelly, Holden, 313pts
2nd Mark Winterbottom, Ford, 300pts
3rd Rick Kelly, Holden, 294pts
4th Jason Bright, Ford, 274pts
5th Russell Ingall, Ford, 259pts
6th Garth Tander, Holden, 257pts
7th Steve Johnson, Ford, 234pts
8th Jason Bargwanna, Ford, 233pts
9th Cameron McConville, Holden, 227pts
10th Craig Lowndes, Ford, 223pts

Top Ten Championship Standings

1st Craig Lowndes, Ford, 2601pts
2nd Rick Kelly, Holden, 2571pts
3rd Mark Winterbottom, Ford, 2283pts
4th Russell Ingall, Ford, 2211pts
5th Garth Tander, Holden, 2105pts
6th Jamie Whincup, Ford, 2000pts
7th Jason Bright, Ford, 1988pts
8th Steve Richards, Holden, 1982pts
9th Todd Kelly, Holden, 1927pts
10th Steven Johnson, 1927pts