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Lowndes to Ford

© Philip Northeast

Months of speculation have finally been put to rest with the recent announcement that Craig Lowndes will drive a Ford prepared by Fred Gibson in the Shell V8 Supercar Series for 2001.

The rumour mill had Lowndes linked to just about all the top Holden and Ford teams at one time or other. The Gibson Lowndes link had been a strong runner with the assumption that it would be a new team as Gibson had recently sold his team that became Kmart Racing.

The eventual outcome had an unexpected twist. The first surprise was Steven Richards leaving Kmart racing to fill the vacant seat at FTR. Was this an opportunity for Lowndes to race a Holden for Gary Dumbrell at Kmart racing? No,because Gary Dumbrell had sold Gibson Motorsport back to Fred Gibson who had forged the Lowndes-Ford link. The Holden cars are for sale and the contracted drivers are no longer required. Ford was able to offer Richards the FTR drive leaving Greg Murphy out in the cold as all the top teams had finalised their drivers for 2001. This has been an extraordinary period of speculation in Australian motor racing and Lowndes decision to swap manufacturers is unusual for a high profile driver.

Why all the fuss over one driver? Lowndes is the most exciting young driver in Australia.

He followed the normal path, starting in Karting moving through Formula Ford then Formula Holden. After a solid grounding in open wheel cars he earned a chance as co-driver in the 1994 touring car endurance races with the Holden Racing Team.

In his first touring car races Lowndes matched it with the best at the front of the field, gaining second place at Bathurst after a thrilling race with eventual winner John Bowe in the DJR Falcon.

Suitably impressed HRT promoted Lowndes into the team full time for 1996. He repaid the faith team manager Jeff Grech placed in him by winning the first Shell Australian Touring Car series that the team had ever won and the two endurance races. How good was this? Lowndes had only ever raced open wheelers and made the switch to touring cars with no transition period. Image someone coming from Indy Lights to NASCAR and winning the Winston Cup, Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 in his very first year in any form of tin top racing. The way he did it was equally impressive, usually blasting off the front row and establishing a race winning lead on cold tyres. Then he only had to maintain the gap back the rest of the field.