Jamie Whincup leads Mark Winterbottom in race four of the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship.
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By Briar Gunther 2:05 AM Sun 28 February, 2010
Source: BigPond Sport
TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup has continued his perfect record and perfect points haul in the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship, winning race four today.
Whincup held off the Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom, who got the jump on Whincup at the start but finished second at Bahrain International Circuit.
The top three finishing positions replicated last week’s Yas V8 400 in Abu Dhabi, with Stone Brothers Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen finishing in third place.
“That was the toughest race of the weekend without doubt,” Whincup said at the conclusion of the Gulf Air Desert 400.
“Looking back, debuting a couple of cars and having a couple of dodgy test days to winning the first four of the Championship, it’s just a massive, massive effort for my team.
“It’s an achievement we are extremely proud of but the race; not my best start.”
Whincup also ran wide at one point in the race and was slow to take off on his second pit stop.
“I’ll go away and have a bit of a think about that; yeah not my best performance but happy to come away with 150 points,” he said.
“It’s so hard to win a race in this championship so to win the first four is huge.
Whincup described his battle with Winterbottom throughout the race as a dogfight and heading into the Adelaide Clipsal 500, he believes it will continue.
“Frosty threw it at us and we were able to come away with it.
“We predicted they would be strong all year, they’ve made a great start and it’s going to be a dogfight right until the end.”
Winterbottom was happy with another solid result, which has left him sitting only 47 points behind Whincup in the Championship.
“I thought I’d make him (Whincup) work this time, make him earn the win,” Frosty said.
“He’s still got speed on us but at least he made mistakes and showed he’s human so it was good to push him all the way.
“We’ve still got work to do. It’s good in sections and bad in others and that last set (of tyres) definitely killed the speed a bit but I definitely pushed hard in the middle (stint).”
Van Gisbergen said his podium position made up for a less than satisfactory performance in race three.
“Yesterday we qualified well and our tyres just didn’t last the race,” the SP Tools Racing driver said.
“We changed the car for today and we didn’t qualify too well and that was partly my fault but the tyres held in a lot longer and we passed some cars and had a great strategy.”
Lap one turn one dramas for a number of Commodore drivers, including Toll Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander, Trading Post Racing’s Jason Bright and Jack Daniel’s Todd Kelly forced them all out of contention.
Karl Reindler was back in the garage when his Fair Dinkum Homes Racing Commodore, which was parked to the side of the track with a clutch problem, caught fire late in the race, while Tander’s day was over a lap early when his #2 Commodore broke a steering arm after contact with Winterbottom’s teammate, Steve Richards.
Race four top 10
Jamie Whincup Commodore
Mark Winterbottom Falcon
Shane van Gisbergen Falcon
Rick Kelly Commodore
Lee Holdsworth Commodore
Will Davison Commodore
James Courtney Falcon
Jason Richards Commodore
Michael Caruso Commodore
Paul Dumbrell Falcon
Championship top 10
Jamie Whincup Commodore 600
Mark Winterbottom Falcon 543
Shane van Gisbergen Falcon 471
Craig Lowndes Commodore 447
James Courtney Falcon 420
Rick Kelly Commodore 392
Lee Holdsworth Commodore 372
Steve Johnson Falcon 296
Michael Caruso Commodore 294
Russell Ingall Commodore 270
