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Holden finally declared ‘game on’ Saturday, snapping Ford’s grip on the V8 Supercars Series at Symmons Plains. Garth Tander scored a breakthrough victory for the red team when he won the opening race of the Tasmanian round from fellow Commodore pilot Russell Ingall.
It was the first win for Holden this year, ending a six-race drought.
Tander, who had taken out his third successive pole position at the short track, flashed past the finish line just one tenth of a second from Ingall, who had harried him throughout the 42-lapper.
Steven Johnson finished third to be the leading Ford driver while series leader Jamie Whincup could manage no better than eighth place in his Falcon.
Tander had to deal with a crowded field over the shortest track on the calendar and also had to come to grips with the new soft sprint tyre on a cold surface.
But the Holden Racing Team driver, who previously won here in 2005-06, handled the pressure with ease.
“There was plenty going on when cars were pitting and going in and coming out – who is on what tyre and who was (racing) for position and who’s not and then at the end when we were lapping traffic it was on for young and old,” Tander said.
“It was busy the whole race and obviously there there was a bit of the unknown about how the sprint tyre would work here in these cold conditions on a very short lap and our car was very, very good all race.
“I just tried to manage the gap as much as I could all the way through the race so that I could look after the tyre at the end. It went away a little bit right at the end there but the speed was still very good so I’m very happy to finally get a result for Holden.”
Veteran Ingall dodged and weaved to try to get past Tander but was continually frustrated by slower cars and later blasted those he called “turkeys.”
“It was a bit of a pain in the backside really,” Ingall said.
“There were a couple of times there where Garth did some good (passing) lunges at the end of the back straight and I went to follow him through – and you can tell with the attitude of some drivers.
“A couple of them just turned left hard and if I’d stayed there I would have turned them around and possibly taken the front end off my car so I had to grab some kerb now and then.
“It was just a shame because I wanted to get on Garth and give him a good race at the end but he picked the traffic pretty good and I got held up.
“Some you’d expect it – and I knew which ones they were, you can pretty well see the number on the back and you can say, yep, turkey…turkey…not too bad…turkey…”
Ingall said he was pleased with the car after his Supercheap Auto Racing team solved a build issue he said had been hindering them all year.
“Instantly we got pace so at least we got that fixed and out of the way,” he said.
Whincup maintained an 84-point lead in the series over Tander’s teammate Will Davison ahead of a 84-lap race set for Sunday.
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