The 2010 V8 Supercar championship battle may well have been decided on Saturday in a scene of traffic chaos unsighted on Sydney streets since April’s F3 debacle.
The three drivers contesting this year’s crown – James Courtney, Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom – were all battling for the lead in the first 250km race at the Sydney Olympic Park precinct with a thrilling finish in store.
In the race’s 60th lap however, everything changed when rain lashed across the 3.4km street circuit and all three drivers found themselves piled into the wall at turn five.
From the chaos, Ford rookie Jonathan Webb emerged to claim his maiden V8 Supercar race win, crossing the line ahead of Holden Jason Bright and Rick Kelly.
All eyes were however on the garages of Courtney, Whincup and Winterbottom as the chase for the championship became a race to get crippled cars back on track for vital points.
Courtney’s battered Ford re-emerged to claim a 15th place finish while Whincup was agonisingly ruled to not have finished the race when his Holden limped over the line too slowly to make the cut-off.
It means Courtney is now 113 points ahead of Whincup going into Sunday’s final 250km race of the season, needing to finish 23rd or better to claim his first V8 crown.
And the 30-year-old said never had a mid-pack finish in a car held together by race tape felt as sweet.
“It was beautiful, never felt so good,” the Dick Johnson Racing driver said.
“I can’t thank my guys enough … if it does swing the other way and we end up winning it (title) they’re the ones, those guys, that did it right there.
“Amazing effort.”
Whincup, who suggested he might contest his did-not-finish classification and try to claim the 57-points he would have been awarded as a race finisher, said regardless of how far behind he was, the championship race isn’t over.
“It’s not over until the last lap, so we’ll come out fighting tomorrow,” the two-time defending champion said.
“You’ve got to race. You’ve got to go out there and go hard.
“We all made the same call (to stay on slicks in the wet) and honestly … we all aquaplaned with 100m before the corner and we were just passengers at that stage.
“I keep thinking back, ‘how could we have avoided that?’ and with the facts that I had, it was almost unavoidable.”
Winterbottom failed to return to the track and is now out of the championship hunt, trailing Courtney by more than the 150 points on offer to Sunday’s race winner.
For race winner Webb, the circumstances of his victory were fortunate, but no less special.
“It’s just an amazing feeling,” he said.
“It shows how hard the boys have worked all year and personally I’ve worked very hard on every aspect of what’s involved to be a V8 Supercar driver.
“It’s definitely the first but hopefully not the last.”
The V8 Supercar season wraps up on Sunday with another 250km race at Homebush from 2.35pm AEDT.
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