Mark Winterbottom wins shortened Race 3

Mark Winterbottom has taken his third race win of the weekend in a shortened Race 3 for the MSS Security V8 Supercars Challenge at Albert Park.

Winterbottom led home Garth Tander by 1.3s, while Will Davison, Shane van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard rounded out the top five.

The race was reduced to a 7 lap sprint after a red flag for a Lap 1 incident that was triggered by contact between James Courtney and Jamie Whincup at Turn 3.

The TeamVodafone Commodore was spun into the path of the field, where it was collected by the Holdens of Karl Reindler, Taz Douglas, David Wall and Russell Ingall. Douglas’ car ended up on its side after the incident, resulting in a lengthy clean-up period.

While pole-sitter Mark Winterbottom slipped to fourth on the initial start, the Orrcon Ford driver led the field away on the second attempt, before heading a train of hard tyre shod cars to pitlane at the end of the opening lap.

The key runners to stay out were Davison, Coulthard and Greg Murphy, who had all started on the softer rubber.

The trio waited until the end of the penultimate lap before pitting, with Davison returning to the circuit between Winterbottom and Tander.

The Toll HRT Commodore then found its way around the Trading Post Falcon at Turn 11 as Davison struggled to get his hard tyres up to temperature.

Lee Holdsworth, Craig Lowndes, Todd Kelly, Murphy and David Reynolds rounded out the top 10, with Courtney 11th after going unpenalised for his hit on Whincup.

Whincup took the restart from pitlane and eventually finished as the last of the runners in 23rd after electing to run on the hard tyres for the majority of the race.

Others looking to save their soft rubber for tomorrow included Jason Bright, Steve Owen and Rick Kelly.

Alexandre Premat joined Reindler, Douglas, Wall and Ingall in failing to take the restart after sustaining damage in the initial fracas.

See below for the full Race 3 result

See below for Speedcafe.com’s Australian Grand Prix Race Guide