Garth Tander and the Toll HSV Dealer Team cleaned up at Phillip Island in a nail-biting, last-race climax to one of the closest V8 Supercar Championship battles in history.
Tander won the final round to seal his first V8 championship victory by just 2 points from rival Jamie Whincup – 625 to 623 – giving the Toll HSV Dealer Team back-to-back wins in the Drivers Championship.
The Toll HSV team also won the Teams Championship for the second year running, while also helping Holden to another Manufacturers title.
For Tander, the come-from-behind win tops 10 years of V8 Supercar racing, erasing the disappointment of a narrow second place in the title fight to Mark Skaife in 2000.
The 2000 Bathurst winner described the feeling as he crossed the finish line as “unbelievable”, adding that a radio message from his engineer Mathew Nilsson that all he had to do was sit tight behind Craig Lowndes over the closing laps as “the best radio message I have ever had”.
Wife Leanne, who came within two points of becoming the first woman to win a major Australian motor racing title in F3 just weeks ago, was reduced to tears of joy after her husband crossed the finish line.
The West Australian has been the dominant driver all season, winning four rounds and a total of 15 races – more than his next several rivals combined.
The win in the Phillip Island Grand Finale was his 11th career round victory, and by far the sweetest.
His team-mate Rick Kelly, who came fourth in the championship, was full of praise for Tander, saying he richly deserved the win.
“It is a credit to Garth and a credit to the team,” he said. “To win both championships two years in a row is a superb effort.”
After coming into the round seven points behind Whincup, Tander won the first two races of the weekend. He then took a seven-point lead into the last race. Effectively, he then needed to just make a clean start and stay somewhere close to Whincup.
But a spanner was thrown in the works when a tail-ender struck mechanical trouble just as Tander was about to make his compulsory pit stop. Fearing the pit lane might be blocked by the slow-moving car, the team kept Tander out for extra laps on fast-fading tyres.
By the time he pitted, Whincup had made up sufficient ground to emerge in front of Tander. However, crucially, Whincup trailed race leader Todd Kelly.
Over the next 20 laps, Tander was in a Triple 8 sandwich, between Whincup and his team-mate Craig Lowndes, who hammered Tander’s bumper, trying to force a mistake.
Eventually, Lowndes bumped Tander wide and forced his way through. When Tander shaped up to try to re-pass Lowndes, the team radioed Tander not to bother, as he was in position to win the championship by staying where he was, in fourth place.
The championship also hinged on whether Todd Kelly could hang on to the lead in Race 3. He bravely fought on to keep Whincup at bay, not only saving Tander’s title but also winning the race, while wrapping second place for the round and doing his bit to seal Holden’s Manufacturers Championship.
In all, it was won of the most dramatic final races in championship history.
#16 Garth Tander (Race 1 – 1st; Race 2 – 1st, Race 3 – 4th. Round – 1st, 63pts. Championship – 1st, 625pts): “It certainly hasn’t sunk in. Obviously it was a fantastic result considering how low I felt on Sunday night in Tasmania. To fight back from those lows and come back from a bad qualifying this weekend and win two races to set ourselves up so we could manage the third race if we had to. It was fantastic effort by our guys all year, especially this weekend. We dug ourselves out of the biggest hole we have had post qualifying, and it was just absolute elation – I just can’t believe we did it. Our team has won two championships in the three years I have been there, and to win my championship with them is absolutely fantastic. We ended up staying out before our pit stop probably a lap too long and ended up getting caught between Jamie and Craig. From there, it was a game of high-speed chess. I didn’t realise I still had it (the title) if Craig elbowed his way by. So, when the boys told me don’t worry about it and cruise to the end it was a good feeling.”
#1 Rick Kelly (Race 1 – 5th, Race 2 – 8th, Race 3 – 11th. Round – 7th, 31pts. Championship – 4th, 552pts): “It is a massive relief to see that it is all done for the year with Garth wrapping it up. That’s what we came here this weekend to do. Unfortunately I was pretty much out of the running before we got here, and he just did a great job. It was interesting to see the tactics at the end of the race there. But he pulled through and got the championship and it was well deserved. The effort is a credit to all the guys. To win back to back championships in both Drivers and Teams is fantastic. It shows we are the best team out there and hopefully next year we can prove it again as well.”
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