TeamVodafone's Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife celebrate winning the 2010 L&H 500 at Phillip Island.
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By Allan Edwards 6:39 PM Sun 12 September, 2010
Source: V8 Supercars Australia
A decade after the pair last teamed up in an endurance race Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife won the L&H 500 at Phillip Island today (Sunday).
In a race of changing fortunes, Lowndes was able to chase down and pass his TeamVodafone teammate, Jamie Whincup, with 20 laps to go.
Championship contender Whincup had dramas with his Triple Eight Commodore when a bracket on an oil cooler broke and he was forced to pit for repairs.
While Lowndes went on to win, Whincup returned to the race with just a handful of laps to go to finish a lowly 29th place.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for Whincup and his co-driver Steve Owen, neither of whom had put a foot wrong all day.
Ford Performance Racing pair Mark Winterbottom and Luke Youlden passed the BOC Commodore of Jason Richards in the closing laps of the race to claim second.
At one stage it looked as though Richards – who eventually finished third – would challenge for the race victory before his tryes went off.
This was an amazing effort considering his co-driver, Andy Jones, had a start to the race he would rather forget, including a broken wheel nut in the pits on lap eight and a stop-go penalty for a pitlane infringement.
Lowndes said his Triple Eight Commodore felt good all day.
“When we got our last stop over and done with our car was working really well. I wasn’t sure how hard to push the car because of tyre wear and fuel consumption, but we got by as Jamie made a mistake into Honda and then he had his own problems with the oil cooler, which actually helped me in terms of gaining a bigger gap to second and third,” Lowndes said.
He said his car was running extremely low on fuel at the end of the race, and he had flashbacks to last year’s L&H 500 when he lost the race on the final lap.
“Towards the end I was looking after the car and driving it straight. When you have a five to six second gap you can really look after the car,” he said.
“The guys came on the radio right at the end and said ‘keep going on to reserve’. I wasn’t sure how close we were so I was just driving really conservatively on that last lap, because thinking about 12 months ago and getting robbed on the last lap was not too nice and I was making sure that didn’t happen again!”
Skaife, who did a brilliant job in the opening stint of the 500-kay race, said the last couple of laps watching Lowndes from the pits bringing the car home was an extremely harrowing time for him.
“I was more nervous than I probably ever have been. When Craig was battling with Jamie and Jason Richards was coming at us a bit you just didn’t know what was going to happen,” Skaife said.
“You have the ultimate faith in Lowndesy being able to do the job and he drove fantastically in that last part of the race.”
Skaife said that not much had changed since he last drove with Lowndes 10 years ago.
“There is just a few more grey hairs,” he joked.
However, he said the result had not caused him any doubts over his decision to retire from full-time racing two years ago.
“As I said when I did retire I was happy with my decision and I’m still happy with my decision not to drive full time,” he stressed.
“As long as I can stay fit and I enjoy the competition I will probably do it (drive in the endurance races) for the next four or five years if I feel like it still good fun.”
TeamVodafone principal Roland Dane said it was a day of varied emotions for him.
“It was (mixed feelings) because we were on for a one-two there no problem, which would have been massive in an enduro. That was what we set out to try to do; that was our aim all along,” he told BigPond Sport.
“It was just a shame to have it taken from us like that, but these things happen and we have to get over it.
“We are really happy with winning it. It was great to bring Skaifey back here and see him drive as well as he did here today. He was a big part of it as well today, so really it was a great day for us.”
Dane is hoping that Lowndes’ and Skaife’s L&H 500 victory is a good form indicator for the whole team for next month’s Bathurst 1000.
“I always say that I don’t mind which one of them wins so long as one of them does and Bathurst is the big prize and I think that we have shown that we are pretty quick,” he said.
L&H 500 top 10
Craig Lowndes/Mark Skaife Commodore
Mark Winterbottom/Luke Youlden Falcon
Jason Richards/Andy Jones Commodore
Rick Kelly/Owen Kelly Commodore
Tim Slade/Jack Perkins Falcon
Jonathon Webb/David Russell Falcon
Paul Dumbrell/Dean Canto Falcon
Russell Ingall/Paul Morris Commodore
Garth Tander/Cameron McConville Commodore
Alex Davison/David Brabham Falcon
