Ambrose showed that his Pirtek Falcon had the raw pace by setting the fastest lap in the top ten shoot out to earn yet another pole position. Ambrose and Lowndes made good starts and lead early on in race one. Meanwhile Mark Skaife made his usual mess of things off the line , not only managing to bog the car down and losing many positions but he somehow managed to jump the start as well. The officials had no sympathy, despite his poor overall start, when they added a drive through penalty as well.
Skaife was not the only one to incur the wrath of officialdom as after the compulsory pit stops the two leaders, Ambrose and Lowndes, received their own penalties for exceeding the pit lane speed limit. This left Steven Richards in control of the race from Russell Ingall, although Ambrose managed to work his way back to fourth place.
Off the line for race two Ingall jumped into the lead and Ambrose soon cleared Steven Richards to take second place. Pit strategy and tyre usage then came into play when Ambrose pitted early while Ingall stayed out. Ambrose used his early pace to build an advantage over Ingall. After both cars had completed their pit stops Ambrose ended up in the lead but with older tyres than the chasing Ingall. By lap 36 Ingall had caught Ambrose and then passed him for the lead.
"It's a tough call to go for a move like that against your team-mate who's leading the championship. It can get really ugly out there very quickly if something goes wrong and you don't want to be walking back to the pits together, " Ingall said.
Ambrose did not fight too hard as he knew his teammate was faster at this stage of the race. "Russell managed to close the gap on me in the second race after my tyres went away and it was a matter of when, not if, he was going to pass me, " said Ambrose.
"Once he decided to have a go at me at turn three I got out of his way."
Ingall's victory moved him into second place in the Championship ahead of Steven Richards he now becomes a serious threat to teammate Ambrose's title aspirations.
