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Endurance race rulers Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup are poised to continue their stranglehold on the key V8 Supercar distance events after dominating qualifying for tomorrow’s Phillip Island 500.
The Ford duo’s combined results from the two sprint races today handed them pole position on the grid for the new-look 113-lap Bathurst warm-up tomorrow.
Whincup won the second race from the Fords of Will Davison and James Courtney while in the opening stanza Rick Kelly provided Holden with a victory, ahead of the Falcons of Steve Owen and Jason Bright.
Kelly and teammate Paul Radisich will start alongside the Whincup/Lowndes car tomorrow while the Courtney/David Besnard Falcon will begin from third spot.
For Lowndes and Whincup the day continued their successes of 2007 when they seized both the Sandown 500 and the Bathurst 1000 enduros.
“It was an amazing day really because no-one knew what strategy to play out – whether to pit on the first race or the second race or whether there was going to be a safety car or not,” Lowndes said.
“Both races ran from start to finish without any problems.
“We had our strategy – strategy A was what we laid out and right at the end we chose to pit and get my side of it out of the way and let Jamie get on and hopefully win race two, which he did.
“It’s going to be a long race tomorrow, basically the points which we’ve accumulated today don’t go towards tomorrow’s results so we’ve just got to refocus.”
Whincup blasted away from pole and after an initial skirmish with Davison, produced a regulation drive to seal the TeamVodafone’s top spot.
“It was an exciting start to the race and after that it was fairly straightforward,” Whincup said.
Whincup described the new sprint-race qualifying system as “a bit of a lottery” but said it had proved exciting for spectators.
Kelly, a former V8 series champion, said he did not expect to be on the front row of the grid.
“Our main aim obviously was to finish as far forward as we could but the main positive from the day is the car speed that we had, which was almost a little bit of a surprise to me,” Kelly said.
“I think there is a bit of a cause to get excited for the team because we have had a bit of a struggle in the last few rounds.
“It’s good for our confidence, so fingers crossed, we can get on the podium.”
Courtney and former Stone Brothers teammate Russell Ingall, now driving for the Supercheap Auto Holden outfit, had their own private dice behind the pacesetters, with Ingall later accusing Courtney of dirty driving tactics and hitting out at officials.
“Courtney was blocking so severe and in the rules you’re not allowed to block,” Ingall said.
“I was on the racing line and (the officials) didn’t do a thing about it.”
Courtney, though, saw it differently.
“I had a good run with Russell and he was giving it a red-hot go, that’s for sure,” he said.
“I’ve raced with him for the last two years and as a teammate I’ve got a lot of confidence in him.
“He’s a very hard but very fair racer – there’s no-one I’d feel more comfortable running side-by-side with.”
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