V8 » Courtney wins Winton opener

15 May 2010
James Courtney wins the first V8 Supercar Championship race of the weekend at Winton
Courtney wins Winton opener
A scrap to the end between James Courtney and Jamie Whincup is well on the cards after a remarkable opening race of the weekend at Winton Raceway.

Courtney and Whincup made it very clear that they are enmeshed in a winner take all dog fight for the Championship lead while plenty of other contenders are also weighing in on the action.

A third straight win today in an incredible race - Whincup was third - from Craig Lowndes has Courtney just three points from the Championship lead with a chance he may assume the front-running title tomorrow.

“Everything's charging on at the moment and going great for me,” Courtney said. “A bit more of the same would be good and hopefully we can come out with the lead in the Championship.

“It would be nice to have someone else in front because Jamie's been there pretty consistently for the last couple of years.”

Courtney win in the end was quite comfortable in terms of margin but not without its moments as Lowndes swamped the field towards the end, including his team-mate, but ran out of laps to catch the Jim Beam racer.

“Knowing we had far fresher tyres on the car was great but you had to know where and when to pass,” said Lowndes. “Even knowing that we had better tyres then James we ran out of tyres faster than he did.”

The end result left the Championship wide open, something that has not overly fazed Whincup.

“It has happened the last three or four years believe it or not. If you look from the outside it looks as though it is all planned. It seems that we set this scene and we are the puppets,” Whincup said.

“But that's the way it goes, it's up and down and all over the place. We will have more different leaders of the Championship, probably three or four before we get to the Supercarnivale on the Gold Coast in October.”

It wasn't just Courtney and Whincup fighting it out. There were epic battles through the whole field with cars belting each other at every turn as fight packs exchanged blow after blow for positions.


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Tagged as: Jim Beam , winton , james courtney
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James Courtney (Aust) #18 Jim Beam DJR FG Ford Races 11 & 12 V8 Supercars Winton Motor Raceway Winton Vic

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Phil C. - Unregistered

May 19, 2010 1:18 PM

Awesome race. Heaps of passing, plenty of pressure and a number of collisions. The dice for the lead with Courtney & Whincup was frantic to say the least. I thought that one or both was going to end in the wall with that outside crazy sequence. Good work Ford! Keep those wins coming :)


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