Craig Lowndes says he feels closer to a long awaited fourth V8 Supercars title than ever before after taking the points lead with just six races remaining.
Lowndes combined with Warren Luff to win Race 30 on the Gold Coast, breaking a 10 race losing streak in the championship and a seven-year winless run at Surfers Paradise.
A failure to finish for team-mate Jamie Whincup enabled Lowndes to turn a 114 point deficit into a 36 point lead.
“A couple of years ago we came into this weekend leading the championship but we went out of the back side of it second and we lost it from here,” said Lowndes afterward, recalling his botched 2011 campaign alongside Andy Priaulx.
“This has always been the bogey round for me and I have never had a good clean run throughout. Where we are right now is fantastic.
“It’s the best shot that I’ve had in a long time to win the championship.”
Luff started the winning car from pole, dropping to third early before moving back to the lead when electing not to pit under the first of what would be four Safety Car interventions.
A stroke of misfortune occurred less than 10 laps later when a second Safety Car was called, this time to retrieve Whincup’s stranded Holden, just as Luff suffered a puncture.
Restarting 20th, the 2012 Sandown 500 winner cycled back to second by the time he handed over to Lowndes at a later-than-scheduled Lap 55.
Overtaken by Shane van Gisbergen early in his first stint, Lowndes kept pace with the Kiwi before regaining the track position with a shorter final fuel stop.
Rejoining with a five second lead, Van Gisbergen had the gap down to below four early in the final fuel run before Lowndes steadied the ship.
“We only put rears on and it imbalanced the car for a few laps but once the rear tyres settled down we had good pace and we had a really good run through traffic,” explained Lowndes.
Lowndes had earlier in the day escaped penalty for a qualifying collision with Will Davison.
Although a grid penalty of up to five places was expected from some quarters, Lowndes was thankful for the leniency displayed by Driving Standards Observer Cameron McConville.
“I’m not exactly what Will’s situation was whether it was an in-lap or whether he was warming up for a lap but he was travelling slower than me,” said Lowndes.
“We had contact unfortunately and his car got turned around and he rolled backwards into the tyre bundles. Because we were on a hot lap Cameron deemed it all clear.
“There were indications it was going to happen (a penalty) but then Cam investigated it and he realised we were on a hot lap and had the lights on like we were supposed to.”
A single qualifying session and 300km race will complete the Armor All Gold Coast 600 on Sunday.
