Bright blasts through for Winton victory

Jason Bright put on a great charge in the final stages of Race 11 at Winton, taking his second race win of the season from championship leader Jamie Whincup.

The race was threatened by weather throughout, with a black lightning cloud closing on the Victoria circuit in the final moments. The race was completed in dry conditions however, with Bright taking advantage of an alternative strategy to steal the win from Jamie Whincup with two laps to go.

Mark Winterbottom had claimed his first pole position of the season in his Ford Performance Racing Falcon. ‘Frosty’ had a great start, getting away from Jamie Whincup at the line.

There was a pile-up on lap three after Will Davison spun around to face the traffic. Todd Kelly, Russell Ingall and Jason Bargwanna all piled into the Falcon saw Kelly and Ingall eliminated from the race whilst the safety car was deployed.

Will Davison would rejoin after repairs as would reigning champion James Courtney, who was also caught up in the incident and suffered steering damage.

On lap 12, Whincup swept past Winterbottom for the lead at Turn 3 with Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander repeating the manouvre on the next lap.

Whincup and Tander went on to build a strong lead as Winterbottom held up the pack, with the Garry Rogers Motorsport pair of Michael Caruso and Lee Holdsworth pitting early to gain track position.

After the first sequence of stops, Whincup led whilst both the GRM cars found themselves between Whincup and Garth Tander with the early pit seeming to have paid off.

However, Tander was able to pass both the GRM cars over the next few laps and close down on Whincup, taking the lead at Turn 4 on lap 31.

Another driver on a charge was Greg Murphy. The Kelly Racing driver had qualified 13th, but had been excluded from qualifying after it was found the car was fitted with the wrong control wheels during the session, a penalty which Murphy voiced as being “pathethic”. The fired up New Zealander drove through the field to finish in 11th place, after running as high as fifth.

At the second round of pit stops, a great stop by Triple Eight got Whincup back out ahead of Tander, with the again early stopping GRM car of Michael Caruso back ahead of the Perth driver for what was a net second place.

Tander passed Caruso on lap 45 but couldn’t close down on Whincup this time and held station behind the Triple Eight Falcon.

A look to the skies would see a dark cloud threatening the circuit, with rain almost inevitable.

Jason Bright had pitted last, staying out the longest on his first set of tyres and was therefore off strategy, and had lost track position as a result. With the fresher Dunlop tyres though, he began a charge through the field, first passing Stone Brothers Racing’s Shane Van Gisbergen for 5th, then battling Craig Lowndes for fourth, passing the Triple Eight driver with just ten laps to go.

Bright then closed down and passed Caruso and Tander at the same corner on two consecutive laps, but with four laps to go looked like he had no time to catch Whincup for the lead.

Within two laps, the Brad Jones Racing Commodore was on the tail of the Triple Eight Commodore and slipped past Whincup for the lead on lap 65 of 67. Bright built a safe cushion to take BJR’s second ever victory in consecutive race meetings, and Bright’s first at Winton since 2006 with FPR.

Whincup’s second place further extends his championship lead, now up to 1234 points, 262 points ahead of team-mate Craig Lowndes. Garth Tander holds on to third in the standings 37 points back from Lowndes but is now just 15 points clear of Jason Bright in the championship who leaps from seventh to fourth.

The next round of the championship is the Skycity Triple Crown at Darwin in the Northern Territory in four weeks.