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LOWNDES WINS PHILLIP ISLAND V8 ROUND

© Philip Northeast

Ford Performance Racing's Craig Lowndes has taken his first round win for Ford with a dramatic victory at round two of the V8 Supercar Series at Phillip Island. The result was the Ford BA Falcon's first V8 Championship Series round win.

The round win comes hot on the heels of the race win to Pirtek Racing's Marcos Ambrose in Adelaide, and a race victory to Caltex Havoline Racing's Russell Ingall at the non-championship Grand prix support event at Albert Park.

A torrential downpour on lap 50 of 67 brought out the safety car with Lowndes in front. With areas of the circuit flooded officials declared the race five laps later.

With one eye on the threatening weather, the Ford Performance Racing crew decided to keep Lowndes out on track while others made early tyre stops. Once the rain started to fall Lowndes dived into the pits for his only tyre stop and fitted wet weather tyres, while others had to make an extra stop to change from their fresh dry tyres to wets.

The late stop strategy played a crucial role for Lowndes, as he also pitted some ten laps later than his rivals earlier in the race for fuel. This gave him clear track position to stretch a gap while others battled with back markers.

Betta Electrical Team Brock lead driver Jason Bright has survived a post-race investigation to shoot to the lead of the V8 Supercar Championship after finishing second in a rain-shortened race at Phillip Island today. Bright was lucky to even finish after he ran into the Pirtek Falcon of Marcos Ambrose at he pit lane entry. He then pushed the Falcon off the entry road, across the grass, to the next corner and only stopped when he had turned Ambrose around on the outside of the track at the exit of the last turn. "The car was wounded alright, it just wouldn't turn left and if the race resumed I was going to be in trouble," Bright said. “He’s a bloody fool if he was coming across to the pits from outside, and if he wasn’t coming into the pits he’s an even bigger fool than I thought he was,” Jason said.

Naturally Ambrose had a different view of the incident to Bright’s. “I don’t know what he (Bright) was thinking.”

“I was coming in for wets and he just hit me on the inside.

“The crash went for about 400m because he just wanted to keep going and eventually he just turned me around.”

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