Jamie Whincup takes 13th victory of 2014 in Sydney

Jamie Whincup claimed his 13th V8 Supercars victory of 2014 in the first race of the Sydney 500 season finale.

The Triple Eight Race Engineering driver started second but got the jump on pole sitter Will Davison and claimed the lead into the first corner.

Whincup was able to pull away in the first part of the race, but lost the lead in the first safety car session as Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom went into the wall in corner one.

Walkinshaw Racing driver Tim Slade was able to leapfrog up into the lead during the first safety car period and was able to fend off Whincup for a good portion of the race. But Whincup made a decisive move towards the end of the race and pulled up a lead to win by over three seconds.

Slade was able to hang on to second place to secure his best result of the year ahead of Rod Nash Racing driver David Reynolds in third, also scoring his best result of the year.

Volvo Polestar Racing’s Scott McLaughlin claimed fourth position from sixth on the grid with left-front damage to his car after a battle with James Courtney. The Holden Racing Team driver had just got past McLaughlin for fourth when the both made contact, resulting in a spin for Courtney who dropped to eleventh position.

Rick Kelly was the top Nissan driver in fifth position ahead of a storming Shane Van Gisbergen who finished an impressive sixth from 18th on the grid. Sixth place meant important points for the Tekno Autosports driver as main rivals for the runners up spot in the championship were behind him. Winterbottom retired from the race while Craig Lowndes finished 13th after starting 20th from a crash in qualifying.

There was a second safety car session in the race after contact between Todd Kelly and Scott Pye. Kelly made a mistake in turn one and clipped the wall with major damage to the rear end of the car. As Kelly rejoined the track, he was clipped by Scott Pye, with both drivers retiring from the race.

Pole sitter and Erebus Motorsport driver Davison had a tough race, dropping to fourth position and later retiring due to a power steering failure.

The second race starts at 16:50 local time with Jason Bright on pole ahead of Van Gisbergen.