Craig Lowndes has hung on for a stunning victory in Race 27 of the V8 Supercars Championship at the Sydney Telstra 500.

While team-mate and title rival could manage just 20th after a midrace damper failure put the #88 Commodore in the Turn 5 wall, Lowndes beat Garth Tander to the win by 0.8s as the majority of the field ran low on fuel in the final laps.

Whincup now leads Lowndes by 83 points with just one race and 150 points left available.

Tander passed Michael Caruso on the last lap to take second, while Shane van Gisbergen demoted the stuttering Fujitsu Commodore to fourth in a spectacular last-corner pass that saw the SP Tools Falcon ride over Caruso’s left-rear wheel – shooting the Ford momentarily into the air.

Mark Winterbottom recovered from a drive-through penalty to take fifth, while Tim Slade, James Courtney, James Moffat, Todd Kelly and Rick Kelly rounded out the top 10. Rick Kelly had looked set for third before pitting for fuel on the penultimate lap.

The thrilling finish had been set up by a Safety Car appearing for Jason Bright’s stranded Team BOC Commodore on Lap 46 – just outside the normal fuel range of the field.

Caruso led at the final restart and initially appeared to have the measure of Lowndes, but was forced to yield the top spot when his rival began upping the pace with little over 10 laps remaining.

It was a tough day for Ford Performance Racing, with Will Davison leading the early laps before damaging his steering – which eventually broke and sent the pole-sitter into the Turn 1 wall on Lap 12.

Front-end failures also accounted for the FPR-built Falcons of Paul Dumbrell and Tony D’Alberto, in addition to the Triple Eight-designed cars of Jonathon Webb and Whincup.

A late change to the kerbing regulations appeared to be to blame for the high attrition rate, with the drivers told last night that the electronic kerb-hopping sensors around the circuit would be turned off for the remainder of the weekend following a day of inconsistent operation on Friday.

Winterbottom’s Orrcon Steel FPR Falcon survived however and looked to be in the box seat as half distance approached, but a penalty for turning an off-sequence Greg Murphy around at Turn 1 on Lap 32 ruined his chances.

Holdsworth had been an effective second behind Winterbottom when the incident occured, but later fell out of contention himself on pit strategy.

See below for the full Race 27 result

See below for the points standings after Race 27