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David Reynolds has won his 2nd ever V8 Supercar race with a victory in race 15 of the championship in Darwin.
After securing his 5th pole position in the category, Reynolds would survive an off track excursion during the middle of the race, to secure his 2nd win after winning the Sunday race at the Gold Coast 600 in 2013.
It didn’t start well though for the Bottle O Racing driver as he was overtaken at the start by Fabian Coulthard.
Coulthard, who didn’t make it past the first turn in Race 13 and 14, finally got a good start and would lead for the opening few laps of the race.
Mostert, who started 4th, moved to third on the opening lap as he overtook Shane Van Gisbergen.
These three would remain in those positions until lap 12 when Coulthard made a mistake.
As drivers started to pit, they became caught as lap traffic.
Coulthard would approach Andre Heimgartner and make a mistake as he overtook him into turn 5. He would run wide and lose two spots to 3rd.
Six laps later, on laps 18 to 20, the leaders would pit with positions remaining the same after everyone completed their first set of stops.
The interest in the race came from behind as Red Bull Racing gambled with strategy.
Whincup, whose aim was to run the full race on the soft tyre, pitted early on lap 3 to get out of the traffic.
His team-mate, Craig Lowndes, was the last to pit on lap 21 from those who started with the soft tyre.
He then spent the least amount of time on the hard tyres and pitted again on lap 29.
This put him into the race as the pace on the soft tyre was better than the hard tyre.
Reynolds was the first to react on lap 31 as he pitted from the lead. Mostert and Coulthard would pit ten laps later but be right in the mix with Lowndes for position.
It looked to be a good gamble by Red Bull as Lowndes suddenly became a contender for the race win.
It got even better when Reynolds would relinquish his two second gap, to the next three, by going off at turn 5 and re-entering the circuit at turn 7.
He would keep his lead, and not receive a penalty from the stewards, because he lost time and re-entered the track safely.
Behind him, the Red Bull’s started to struggle.
Whincup would be the first to pit on lap 47 with a tyre delamination. Seven laps later, Lowndes would join him with a tyre delamination, and lose his third position as he had to go back on the hard tyres.
After losing the time for the off track excursion, Reynolds had to fight off a late charge from Mostert and Coulthard, to win the race.
He would do that and hold on for his 2nd ever win in the category.
With his contract with Prodrive finished at the end of the year, and no guarantee to stay at the team, that could be his most important victory in the category.
Rounding out the top 5 was Mostert, Coulthard, Van Gisbergen and Winterbottom.
With Lowndes and Whincup finishing 15th and 22nd respectively, Winterbottom extends his lead to 95 points.
Mostert, who has been the star of the last few rounds, is now 4th after being 21st at the end of the Clipsal 500.
It is starting to look tough for Whincup to win a 7th title.
He will need to bounce back at the next round in Townsville. That event will be held on the weekend of July 10-12 and will be shown on free to air television.
Will today’s racing be as action packed as yesterday?
Find out as The Roar live blogs qualifying and race 15 of the V8 Supercar championship from 11:00am (AEST).
Yesterday was a historic day for the sport with Craig Lowndes winning his 100th race in the category since winning his opening race in 1996.
It was also a chaotic day with plenty of incidents in race 13 and 14.
At the time of writing – Saturday night – the stewards were still investigating both races. Expect plenty of point’s penalties, and plenty of words to occur between drivers.
For the Holden Racing Team and Erebus, who had drivers hit each other, it would have been an interesting team debrief on Saturday night.
Today is a new day though and after yesterday’s racing it looks good for Mark Winterbottom and Lowndes in the championship. The margin between both drivers is just 25 points – with Winterbottom in the lead – but they now have a big margin over the rest of the field.
From Lowndes to Coulthard, in third, the margin is now 144 points after Coulthard scored just 30 points yesterday. If you take away the top 2 the margin is just 80 points from third to eighth.
Winterbottom and Lowndes will be looking to extend the margin in today’s 200 kilometre race.
The race itself will be dominated by the soft tyre, with one set of hard and a set of soft tyres available to use in the race. With the soft tyre being better in times, than the hard tyre, it will be important to use it wisely during the race. Some teams will start with it, pit for hard tyres, and aim to use it at the end of the race. Others will be saving in the hope for a safety car in the middle of the race, and use it until the end.
It will interesting to see which strategy plays out today. Yesterday we saw plenty of teams rise to the front with pace during the day. Prodrive, the Holden Racing Team, Nissan, Tekno Autosport, Brad Jones Racing, and Red Bull Racing all showed pace yesterday with top 5 results in qualifying.
Some though, through no fault of their own, couldn’t show their true race pace because of incidents. Today sees one more practice session before a twenty minute dash determines the grid for race 15.
Prodrive look strong again this weekend and I favour them to be strong over the longer distance. Winterbottom will be looking to repeat his Sunday heroics from 2014.
If the race is anything like yesterday anyone could win the race.
We’ll bring you all the action as it unfolds right here on The Roar.
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