07 May PODIUM IN PERTH
Craig Lowndes drove a brilliant race to come from the rear of the field to the podium, in the latest Virgin Australia Supercars Championship event at Barbagallo Raceway in Perth yesterday.
After some challenges in qualifying, Craig started from the back row and scythed through the field aboard the Autobarn Lowndes Racing #888 Holden Commodore to grab third position with just a couple of laps to run.
“From almost last to almost first is a great feeling and to be on the podium at the end of the day was exactly what we needed,” an elated Craig Lowndes said.
On Saturday Craig had another great race, qualifying strongly in the top 10 before finishing fifth.
Craig is now fourth in the pointscore for the 2018 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.
FRIDAY
- Craig 3rd fastest in Practice 1
- Craig 26th fastest in Practice 2
“We had a good first Practice today. We’d made progress with the car, so I was looking forward to Practice two. We did a mini race run at the start of the second Practice (in) which the car was working really well. After that, we opted to make some further changes to the car for Qualifying. We put on a set of ‘green’ tyres at the end to try and get into the top 10 but unfortunately traffic around here can be very costly. The car is working well, which is a positive, and I’m confident that tomorrow we can move forward.”
SATURDAY
- Craig qualifies 8th for Race 11
- Craig finishes 5th in Race 11
“We had a good qualifying session, being in Q1 it gave us an opportunity to have a feel for the change of wind direction and make sure the car was up to speed. The car was good, and we were able to elevate up into Q2. We opted to only do one run in Q2 to save the tyres for Q3. We fell back to seventh but that was enough to get us through. We had a couple of bites at the cherry in Q3, although we improved the car over every run, we just didn’t quite have the pace to be any further up. We started eighth (in the race), I was happy with that, we had a good start, kept out of trouble and had a good battle in the early parts of the race with David Reynolds. We opted to come in early which obviously made for a long second stint to the finish. Our car pace and balance were good, we just didn’t have the tyre at the end to fight too hard where other guys could. Ultimately to finish fifth when we started eighth is a credit to the team, we moved forwards. It’s good for the points and championship and now I’m really looking forward to tomorrow”
SUNDAY
- Craig qualifies 25th for Race 12
- Craig finishes 3rd in Race 12
“We had a disappointing qualifying session we couldn’t quite get the car to hook up as well as we did yesterday, it was a little bit disappointing to start on the last row. We proved the car was fast, we had great pace throughout the race. We looked after the tyres, which is what we need to do. At the end, we didn’t know where we were after the last rotation of stops but the way it turned out, we had a great run to the end.”