McConville snatches victory at Winton
An audacious last lap pass for victory by Cameron McConville capped off an eventful round seven of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship at Victoria's Winton circuit on 25 July. Ford's Marcos Ambrose lost the series lead to Jason Bright when Ambrose spent many laps bogged in the muddy infield.
The surprises started on Saturday when in wet conditions Craig Baird driving for Team Kiwi Racing took pole position ahead of Holden Racing Teams Mark Skaife .
"It simply proves that with determination and a dream anything is possible, we do not have the same budgets as the factory teams but we do have as big if not bigger hearts, " said team owner David John.
In another unusual qualifying development Kmart Racing's Greg Murphy was allowed to start the race despite finishing .05s outside of the qualifying time due to battery problems.
TOP 10 SHOOTOUT
1: Craig Baird (Holden) 1:39.75
2: Garth Tander (Holden) 1:40.14
3: Steve Johnson (Ford) 1:40.80
4: Marcos Ambrose (Ford) 1:40.92
5: Russell Ingall (Ford) 1:41.07
6: Mark Skaife (Holden) 1:41.22
7: Craig Lowndes (Ford) 1:41.26
8: Jason Bright (Holden) 1:41.5280
9: Jason Bargwanna (Ford) 1:41.5283
10: Cameron McConville (Holden) 1:42.00
McConville swung underneath then leader Rick Kelly on the second last corner of the race as the pair exited a section of track that was under local yellow flag conditions. Kelly made drove relatively slowly around the outside of the corner leaving a large gap for McConville to accelerate through to make the pass and win the race.
Kelly immediately fired in a verbal protest that McConville had passed him while yellow flags were out, a claim that was discounted by the ultimate winner and then the stewards who looked into the circumstances.
"As far as I am concerned I waited for the green flag to come out and I didn't pass until I saw that green flag. Rick wasn't covering the line close enough at the time, " said McConville.
"At the time I thought the corner was under the control of yellow flags so I didn't see the need to block the line going into the corner," Kelly said later in a press release.
The Kmart team however had lodged a Team Request for Incident Review Racing with the stewards claiming that McConville overtook under a yellow flag on the last lap of the Race.
Video from the Ten network revealed that the flag point in question displayed a green flag and the stewards took no further action.
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