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Ford has wrestled the Manufacturers title from Holden at the Australian Grand Prix, winning all three races of the 2009 Sprint Gas V8 Supercar Manufacturers Challenge this weekend.

TeamVodafone driver Craig Lowndes won Race Three this afternoon (Sunday) with a 9.5 second lead over Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom.

And a last minute steering drama for Holden Racing Team’s Will Davison allowed Supercheap Auto Racing’s Russell Ingall to overtake him for third place.

From pole position, Winterbottom again had a great start but lost the lead to Lowndes at Turn 15 on lap three.

Lowndes admitted his starts had not been good all weekend, but said that fresh tyres helped turn his fortunes around.

“I didn’t take too many risks,” he said.

“If I had pressure in front or behind, who knows what could have happened but we lucky enough to get the gap and we just ran it straight.”

Frosty, who won yesterday’s race and finished second overall in the Challenge, said he had no chance of a good fight against Lowndes because he was on old tyres.

“We put on old tyres on that were quite old but we still made changes and learnt a lot,” Winterbottom said.

Davison, who finished third overall in the Challenge, described how he nearly DNFed Race Three.

“Something broke in the front of the car or it lost the power steering and I went flying across the 11-12 chicane,” he explained.

“I was about to bring it in to the pits but I looked on the big screen and saw the pack was a fair way back so I just muscled it around for the last lap and got passed on the last corner by Russell.”

Unlike Race Two, there was a decent amount of passing in Race Three and it was all pretty clean.

A battle between Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander and Wilson Security Racing's Fabian Coulthard lasted for much of the race while Jim Beam Racing’s Steve Johnson and SP Tools driver Shane Van Gisbergen got involved in their own rumble at the end of the race.

Race Three top 10

Craig Lowndes
Mark Winterbottom
Russell Ingall
Will Davison
Jason Richards
Steve Johnson
Garth Tander
Shane Van Gisbergen
Fabian Coulthard
Jamie Whincup

Manufacturers Challenge top 10

Craig Lowndes, FG Falcon
Mark Winterbottom, FG Falcon
Will Davison, VE Commodore
Steven Johnson, FG Falcon
Jason Richards, VE Commodore
Shane Van Gisbergen, FG Falcon
Jamie Whincup, FG Falcon
Fabian Coulthard, FG Falcon
Paul Dumbrell, VE Commodore
Todd Kelly, VE Commodore

Manufacturers Challenge points

Ford 1856
Holden 1574