Kelly Sat

It might have been cold in Tasmania, but it was a ‘Hot Toddy’ who won Race One at Symmons Plains this afternoon (Saturday).

Jack Daniel’s Racing driver Todd Kelly put in a brilliant performance in the wet, overtaking Championship leader Jamie Whincup from TeamVodafone for the race win.

Whincup’s main Championship rival, Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom, finished third while Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander finished 20th after starting from pole.

Kelly, who moved from Holden Racing Team to Jack Daniel’s Racing at the start of the year, has struggled to get his #7 Commodore to the front of the field until recently.

It was his first race win since race three at Phillip Island in 2007.

He said it was hard not to shed a tear after the race, given that his team has put an enormous amount of effort into his car over the season.

“We were quite lucky that the weather came through because we didn’t quite have a dry car that was capable of racing with the front runners and the car was good in the wet and I just had a ball out there,” he said.

“We haven’t had a result all year… and I was quite lucky Jamie wants to win the Championship and not the race so it all worked out.”

Kelly said strategy was a critical part of the race.

“There were probably two or three times we could have easily lost that race with the Safety Car coming out we only just sort of only pitted in time… as it started to dry out these guys started pulling me back in,” he said.

“It’s been a while and I haven’t even been in that situation with this team where you’re under that sort of pressure for a race win.”

Whincup admitted post-race that he was “going pretty hard” even though he planned to go into the race with a more conservative attitude to preserve his Championship lead.

“(It was) really, really tough conditions with a semi-dry start and then raining and then dry again,” he said.

“Once Mark (Winterbottom) pitted it made it easier for us because that’s who we are racing in the Championship so it was a 50/50.

“My guess would have been slicks at that stage which would have been the wrong one but when your main rival pits then you may as well follow them and race it out.”

Winterbottom admitted it was a difficult race.

“You’re driving around there and one guy passes you and you think ‘do I push hard and try and catch him?’ and the next minute he’s off in a gravel trap,” he said.

“But Todd came past and he kept going. You couldn’t catch him.”

At the start of the race, Whincup beat Tander to turn one, but Tander later reclaimed the lead.

By lap 10 he had a 1.5-second advantage over Kelly and Whincup was in fourth, but soon after Tander took a ride across the paddock before he ended up in pit lane.

His compulsory pit stop took longer than usual as his crew had to clean grass from the #1 Commodore front airdam, and then on cold tyres he banked the car at the hairpin.

A Safety Car was brought out just as Tander managed to free his car, but by then Kelly’s teammate Jack Perkins had parked his Commodore just off the side of another part of the circuit.

Stone Brothers Racing’s James Courtney was one of the first casualties of the race with bent steering but his younger counterpart, Shane Van Gisbergen, yet again proved that he is comfortable driving in the wet by pulling off a top five result.

Kelly is hoping for another day of wet weather.

“If it’s wet I think we’ll be in with a bit of a shot; if it’s dry I think it’s going to be a harder day but we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Race One Top 10

Todd Kelly Commodore
Jamie Whincup Falcon
Mark Winterbottom Falcon
Will Davison Falcon
Shane Van Gisbergen Falcon
Craig Lowndes Falcon
Jason Bright Falcon
Steven Johnson Falcon
Fabian Coulthard Falcon
Lee Holdsworth Commodore