by Andy Stobart
He may have only had to finish one of this weekend's three races in fifteenth place or higher, but there was no need for a conservative approach as Marcos Ambrose took his second V8 Supercar title by winning Saturday's race in emphatic fashion at Eastern Creek.
Ambrose was off to a stunning start as Mark Skiafe beside him didn't get away quite so cleanly. The real demon starter of the race however was Craig Lowndes in the FPR Falcon. From fourth on the grid, the Triple Eight bound driver was into second by the first corner.
It all went wrong at that corner for the HRT team. Whilst Lowndes made his stunning start around the outside of turn one, Skaife was trying to cover the inside of the corner, only to discover and make contact with team-mate Todd Kelly.
Skaife span into the gravel, whilst Todd suffered a deflating front tyre from the contact. Whilst one HRT car rejoined the circuit in 24th, the other made its way slowly to the pits for a new boot.
Real benefactor from all this was Russell Ingall, who found himself up into third place after the first few corners had sorted themselves out.
The end of the first lap saw Ambrose with the fastest lap and some 1.3 seconds proud of the chasing, and newly nicknamed Craig ‘the knife' Lowndes. Ingall was 2.4 seconds down on Lowndes, and leading the chasing pack of Max Wilson, Paul Radisich, Jason Bright, Dave Besnard, Steven Johnson and Jason Bargwanna.
Ambrose, with his advantage out front, opted for a late stop, whilst most of the pursuing pack opted for the comedy bulk pitstop as soon as the window opens. Giving the Stone Brothers Racing pitcrew some additional tyre change practice with Russell Ingall's stop was clearly necessary, as all the advantage gained by the Caltex man at the start was undone by a slow front wheel change.
When Ambrose took to the pits over ten laps later there was none of this drama however, and an impeccably quick stop put him out of the still not stopped Jason Bright.
