Jamie Whincup has scored his fourth win of the 2012 V8 Supercars Championship by taking out Race 14 in Townsville.

Whincup led home pole-sitter Mark Winterbottom by 1.2s in a fuel-economy run to the chequered flag.

Whincup made the decisive move on Winterbottom when the Orrcon Falcon touched the Turn 10 exit wall on a Safety Car restart with 28 laps remaining.

Garth Tander, Fabian Coulthard and Craig Lowndes made three-stop strategies work to fill third through fifth, while David Reynolds, Steve Owen, Rick Kelly, Lee Holdsworth and James Courtney rounded out the top 10.

Owen caused controversy by using just one hard tyre during the race – the VIP Petfoods team taking the unusual step of running a combination of three softs and one hard during the second stint.

The strategy looked set to help Owen towards a podium finish before the former Development Series winner fell back through the top 10 in the final stint with a damaged shock absorber.

By contrast, Craig Lowndes charged in the closing stages. The TeamVodafone driver dropped outside the top 20 while being forced to stack behind team-mate Whincup at the second stops. Lowndes subsequently completed an extra stop to ensure he had enough fuel to run flat-out until the end.

Will Davison finished 12th after also losing places stacking behind his team-mate under the third and final Safety Car.

Kelly Racing guest driver Jacques Villeneuve joined Owen, Tander, Russell Ingall, Jonathon Webb and Courtney in starting on the soft tyres, but completed just 18 laps before retiring with engine problems.

Alex Premat and Jason Bright were also on the retirements list after enduring separate incidents at Turn 2, both of which required the Safety Car to remove their stricken vehicles.

Premat was unable to continue after contact with Shane van Gisbergen, while Bright later found himself colliding with Michael Caruso after locking his front brakes into the same hairpin.

Tony D’Alberto, who ran as high as third during the opening lap, was also spun in the Bright/Caruso incident.

The first Safety Car of the race had been called on the very opening lap after a concertina incident at Turn 3 involving Taz Douglas, Karl Reindler and Dean Fiore.

See below for the full Race 14 result

See below for the updated points standings