Craig Lowndes takes his sixth win at the 2015 Bathurst 1000

Craig Lowndes took his sixth career win at the Bathurst 1000, with co-driver Steven Richards collecting his fourth, at the 2015 running of the famous race at Mount Panorama, fighting off Prodrive’s Mark Winterbottom and Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander in a race where controversy again struck for six-time champion Jamie Whincup.

Triple Eight showed themselves to be contenders for the victory after the first round of pit stops, after the mixed up qualifying order from the rain-hit sessions yesterday began to sort itself out.

Co-driver Dean Canto started the pole-winning #55 Rod Nash Racing Ford Falcon FG X, but was unable to hold off the Garry Rogers Motorsport Volvo S60 of Scott McLaughlin or Tekno Autosports’ driver Shane van Gisbergen during the opening stages.

The first retirement and first safety car would follow on lap 15, after David Walls’ Volvo’s engine let go at the top of the mountain. Renee Gracie was an innocent victim of Walls’ issue, sliding on oil in the all-female Prodrive entry and slammed into the wall at Forrest’s Elbow.

Gracie was able to recover the car to the pits so the car was repaired and would rejoin the race and go on to finish 40 laps down, and would officially be classified as a finisher along with co-driver Simona de Silvestro.

After the first restart, Jamie Whincup showed that Triple Eight had monstrous race pace when he took over from co-driver Paul Dumbrell, scything his way from eighth to first in just a few laps, passing the last remaining Volvo of Alexandre Prémat at The Chase on lap 32.

The second safety car period came on lap 36, as the Prodrive-run Super Black Racing car of Ant Pedersen was spun out at the exit of Hell Corner by Lucas Dumbrell’s Karl Reindler.

Prodrive’s bad luck still wasn’t over, with the brake lights becoming stuck on Mark Winterbottom and Steve Owen’s #5 entry.

They would be given the mechanical black flag and would pit to repair on lap 47, but this was deemed as too late for the stewards, who also gave them a 15 second penalty at their next pit stop.

The next major crash of the race was for Tim Blanchard, who hit the wall at Sulman Park on lap 79 in the LD Motorsport Holden. The third safety car period followed, after which Whincup was now leading the race ahead of Triple Eight team-mate Craig Lowndes, with Shane van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb’s Tekno car third.

The forecast rain then appeared on lap 90, and remarkably there were no major crashes during the downpour. The whole field pitted for wet tyres, with Whincup and HRT’s Warren Luff the last drivers to take to the pits to avoid double stacking behind their team-mates.

Craig Lowndes would be among the first of the front-runners to switch back to slicks on lap 103, which spurred the rest of the field to follow his lead.

With Dumbrell now in the #1 car, Lowndes moved to the fore ahead of David Reynolds in the Rod Nash Racing Falcon with Paul Dumbrell now switching back-and-forth between third and fourth with Scott McLaughlin.

During the penultimate round of pit stops, the two Prodrive Racing cars of David Reynolds and Mark Winterbottom got the jump on the Triple Eight cars, but were short fuelled at this point.

The deciding chain of events occurred on lap 138, when Scott Pye crashed out the DJR Team Penske Ford from 11th position at McPhillamy Park. The timing was perfect for a final pit stop, but Jamie Whincup opted to stay out to avoid stacking behind Craig Lowndes in the pits, and darted around the track to take his stop one lap later and emerged in second.

It soon was realised that Whincup had achieved this by driving straight past the safety car as it tried to pick him up just before Griffin’s Bend.

When the race resumed, the reigning champion was handed a drive-through penalty, which would see him fall to the back of the pack and consigned to finish in 18th position. However, Whincup would be able to hold the field back for one lap before serving the penalty, helping to build a three second buffer for team-mate Lowndes.

Also at the restart, Coulthard made a dive at Reynolds at Hell to take what would have ended up being second at the final restart, but in doing so allowed both Mark Winterbottom and Scott McLaughlin through. Coulthard would battle back against McLaughlin at Griffin’s, but this allowed Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander through into third, which effectively set the final order for the race.

With the promised second rain shower never appearing, Lowndes held on to take the victory, his first at Bathurst since 2010 with Mark Skaife, and Triple Eight’s first since 2012.

Mark Winterbottom took key points for his championship challenge with second overall sharing the car with Steve Owen, battling back from his early race dramas, with Tander finishing third with Warren Luff co-driving.

Fabian Coulthard and Luke Youlden finished fourth while Scott McLaughlin and Alex Prémat took Volvo’s best result since 1998 at Mount Panorama with fifth.

The next round of the V8 Supercars Championship is at the Gold Coast 600 in two weeks’ time.