Ford Performance Racing man Mark Winterbottom made it two wins from two in Bahrain but the Desert 400 took another twist after the Toll HSV Dealer Team threw after it's advantage in the V8 Supercar Championship standings.
As was the case in the opening race, Winterbottom was in a class of his own at the front of the field as the Prodrive-run outfit continued to set the pace but behind him, defending champion Rick Kelly and team-mate Garth Tander became involved in a shunt that nullified the advantage held over Team Vodafone following the opening race.
That race had seen both Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes forced to retire following an accident on the opening lap, which allowed Tander to move into the points leader and let Kelly climb into third place. With the two Holdens then up front for the start of race two, and the two Vodafone cars starting from the back, the Toll pairing looked set to drive home their advantage. How wrong that idea turned out to be….
When the lights went green, it was Tander and Kelly who made the best start to jump ahead of pole-man Winterbottom on the run to the first corner. However, the Ford man had no intention of finishing anywhere other than first and dived inside Kelly into the last corner before taking Tander across the line to move into the lead as the field started lap two.
Down towards the back, Whincup and Lowndes were trying to make up places but on lap two, Whincup was tipped into a spin out of turn five – the same place where the race one accident had taken place – and was then hit by Max Wilson as he reversed onto the circuit, with his Falcon picking up damage to the rear as a result. Whincup would also pick up a drive-through penalty for the incident for rejoining in a dangerous manner, but it left him well down the order and out of contention.
However, before Whincup and Kelly could take advantage came an incident that went against the first rule of motor sport – mainly, don't take off your team-mate. Kelly went down the inside of Tander into turn one but when Tander then turned in to take the corner, the resulting contact saw Tander facing the wrong way as the field behind swerved to avoid him and delayed Kelly enough to drop him back into the pack. By the end of lap three, he had suffered another spin after contact with Mark Skaife, meaning that suddenly the two HSV cars were down in 17th and 27th positions. Advantage gone.
All that left Winterbottom with a lead of over six seconds by just the fourth lap and in truth, the only thing that was going to stop him from taking a second win of the weekend was a mistake or a mechanical issue. Having extended his lead once the pit-stop shuffle had taken place, Winterbottom came home comfortably clear of James Courtney, who survived two scares during the race – one when the HSV cars spun in front of him and another when he made contact with Will Davison into turn one after exiting the pits. While it was a somewhat forceful move from the Stone Brothers Racing man, it was key to him taking the position while Davison settled for third – still his best result of the season. The second Jim Beam Falcon of Steve Johnson took fourth.
For Lowndes, a fifth place finish was a fine result but also left the 888 team to wonder what might have been had he not had to start from the back of the field, with Lowndes coming out on top of a late race battle with GRM's Dean Canto. Canto had to settle for seventh in the end having also lost position to Steve Richards late on, with the Repco Valvoline-backed Holden being the top non-Ford in the field. Russell Ingall, Shane Price and Jason Bargwanna rounded out the top ten.
Both Kelly and Tander made it back into the points, although twelfth and 15th certainly wasn't what the pair had hoped for at the start of the race, while the drive-through penalty for Whincup meant he could only trail in down in 23rd place.
The final race of the weekend takes place later today.
