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Struggling with a heavy cold, James Courtney was only feeling worse after fierce rival Jamie Whincup claimed the V8 Supercars’ opening race in Townsville on Saturday.
Courtney thought he had hit rock bottom after being struck down by an illness brought home by his children from child care.
But it paled in comparison to the gut-wrenching sensation following two-time defending champion Whincup’s win in the opening 200km race at the north Queensland street circuit.
He started from pole to finish more than nine seconds ahead of fellow Holden driver Garth Tander.
Ford’s Mark Winterbottom was third while Courtney could only manage fifth on Saturday.
Whincup cut Courtney’s championship lead from 57 points to just 18 with another 200km race to be held on Sunday.
And he continued his meteoric rise through the ranks of the V8 greats.
His 41st career victory ranked him fifth overall on the all-time winners list, behind only Mark Skaife, Whincup’s current Holden teammate Craig Lowndes, Peter Brock and Tander.
“That’s a huge deal without doubt,” Whincup, 27, said of his milestone.
“I am not going to focus on it too much, I am just going to try and do what I do but of course every stat is a big deal.”
Courtney leads the championship on 1809 points ahead of Whincup (1791), Ford’s Shane van Gisbergen (1502), Lowndes (1479), Winterbottom (1473) and Tander (1380) past the halfway mark of the season.
While battling illness, Courtney felt a tad better after receiving word on Saturday night that officials would not investigate a race bingle with his Ford teammate Steven Johnson.
He wasn’t using his poor health as an excuse despite being forced to pull out of an appearance at a V8 Supercars gala dinner on Friday night.
“It’s not affecting what I’m doing in the car,” Courtney said.
“You know people go to work with the ‘flu so I can’t see why it’s going to stop me doing what I do.
“I’ve seen the doc (V8 series doctor Carl Le) and he’s given me a lot of stuff to help stop my eyes and nose otherwise it would be pretty messy.”
Whincup showed his class on Saturday by fighting back after being swamped at the start by Winterbottom and Tander.
“It was 100 per cent all the way, pushing until there was no more left,” Whincup said.
“We nailed the set-up this morning and had such a great car it was simply up to me to go hard and keep it on the black stuff.”
Whincup’s only hiccup was a tight scrape with backmarker Cameron McConville who had come out of retirement for the race.
Lowndes wasn’t so lucky, bungling his flying lap in the top 10 shootout in qualifying before clipping a wall in the first of the race’s 72 laps and never recovering to finish dead last.
One of the unsung heroes on Saturday was veteran Russell Ingall.
The former touring car champion amazingly finished sixth after starting 27th on the grid, negotiating his way through the congested field without any outside help after his team radio went on the blink.
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