Garth Tander has jumped into the lead of the V8 Supercar Championship standings after picking up a second place finish in the opening race of the weekend in Bahrain.
The Toll HSV Dealer Team driver went into the race nine points behind championship leader Jamie Whincup, but with the Team Vodafone driver forced to retire after an incident that also led to the demise of team-mate Craig Lowndes, Tander will go into the second race on Saturday with an eleven point advantage over the Ford driver.
Tander, who started on the second row of the grid after qualifying fourth, won the drag race to the first turn against Steven Johnson and Russell Ingall, and then followed Mark Winterbottom all the way to the flag with the problem for his rivals being an unexpected bonus.
It is all about trying to build a championship lead here, he said. We now need to get out there in race two and score as many points as possible to capitalise on the other guys' misfortune.
I am certainly not going to hang the thing in the fence trying to get a win tomorrow, rather than settle for a bag of points from second place. But we'll see how we go over the first few laps tomorrow we are not going to turn down a win if it is on offer.
Team-mate Rick Kelly was also able to take advantage of the problems for Lowndes and Whincup to climb into third place in the standings after he finished the opening race in fourth.
Kelly made up three places after qualifying seventh, passing both Mark Skaife and James Courtney on the track and Ingall in the pits to take fourth place behind third-placed Johnson.
The track changed for us overnight, which we learned in qualifying, he said. It came back to us in the afternoon. So, we knew we have a strong car there, but it is tough when you get stuck behind someone. Tomorrow we are a step closer to the front, and if we can move forward like we did today we should be well and truly within range of the podium.
