Reigning V8 Supercar champion Garth Tander claimed his third win in as many races on Sunday in Melbourne, at the non-championship event on the support bill of the Australian
F1 Grand Prix.
Tander was never headed across the weekend and he again bolted from the start in race 3, with two of his main rivals, Ford drivers Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom, taking each other out early on.
As he had done in the previous races following a restart, Tander then pulled away, extending his lead to over four seconds, only to ease off on the final lap and take the win by just around two seconds.
The result ensured Holden took a clean sweep at the inaugural Sprint Gas V8 Supercar Manufacturer's Challenge and in the end Holden beat its arch-rival Ford by 444 points - 2012 versus 1568.
"This has been a great weekend for Holden thanks to a tremendous effort by all the guys at the Toll Holden Racing Team, to back up after a championship round last weekend," said Garth.
"We had three really good starts and my Commodore was the best race car I've ever driven, so I'm really happy with it all. The key was matching the car to the circuit's varying grip levels, which our team did exceptionally well; our pace today was really good."
Will Davison meanwhile was 'best of the rest', notching up a trio of third place finishes this weekend and convincingly building on his maiden V8 win at Eastern Creek last week.
"It feels unbelievable to be on the podium again, it's a fantastic result and I'm just thrilled for the team, even though there were no points involved this weekend it gives us great confidence going to New Zealand," he stated.
"We made some set up changes for that last race and the car was quite quick so I was pleased with that given our brakes and tyres weren't great in that final race."
Rick Kelly completed the podium in R3 and while he lost a few positions at the start, he soon regained them after the incident between Winterbottom and Whincup.
![Garth Tander - Holden Racing Team [pic: HSV Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/404645.jpg)
