Lowndes and Whincup finished two-and-a-half second clear of a reborn Sprint Gas Racing pairing of Jason Richards and Greg Murphy, the latter continuing his love affair with Mount Panorama after four wins of his own, while James Courtney starred in the final few laps to take advantage of the tiring tyres under Steven Richards' Ford Performance Racing Falcon to grab the last spot on the podium for himself and Jeld-Wen Ford team-mate Davis Besnard.
There was drama at the start when polesitter Garth Tander jumped the lights and then stalled, thankfully being avoided by the rest of the grid before being slapped with a stop-go penalty that pushed the Toll Holden Racing Team to the rear of the field.
From there, however, Tander and veteran team-mate Mark Skaife worked their way back into the top ten before a series of offs - most coming as the result of Skaife finding the wall and badly damaging the frontal aerodynamics of the #1 Commodore - saw the car drop back to twelfth and, in turn, hand Tander's championship lead back to Whincup.
Victory in the biggest race of the season, coupled with Richards' late problems that dented mark Winterbottom's points haul, sees Whincup leads the series by 33 points over the FPR man, with Tander a further 49 points in arrears in third.
The race was not kind to the Toll HRT team, as Craig Baird and Glen Seton were denied a top five finish after climbing into contention by the final third of the race. Baird was hanging in with the leading pack through the various safety car periods before being forced into the turn two tyre wall after Warren Luff took too much kerb and clipped the back of the Holden.
The result could have been different had an opening lap clash between row three starters Lowndes and Murphy been more serious. While the Vodafone machine appeared to have got away unscathed, Murphy was far from happy with the incident, which led to a tyre problem and an unplanned early pit-stop.
