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Jamie Whincup enters the final day of the Sargent Security Phillip Island 360 as the championship leader despite having struggled for pace thus far at the Victorian venue.
The Red Bull Racing driver kept his nose clean to move from 13th on the grid to fourth during a chaotic 60/60 Super Sprint on Saturday.
With title rivals Craig Lowndes and Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom colliding in the first leg of Race 32, the result was enough to re-instate Whincup as the championship leader.
Lowndes went on to recover to eighth while pole-sitter Winterbottom came home in fifth.
As a result, Whincup now holds a 14 point buffer from previous leader Lowndes with Winterbottom just 74 in arrears.
“I almost feel a bit guilty for taking the points lead,” Whincup told Speedcafe.com.
“We didn’t quite have the pace (on Saturday) and I was struggling a bit with my driving lines.
“Thankfully others had a few little hiccups and on days like that you just have to consolidate and gather as many points as we can and we did that.
“We probably weren’t good enough for fourth but we will take the points for fourth.”
However, the lack of pace compared to his team-mate Lowndes, who started from the front row, and the FPR Fords, is a cause for concern for Whincup.
“It’s just general set up with the car and its a combination of driver and engineer,” he said.
“The package isn’t as good as it should be and that is more my fault than anybody else’s.
“We have just got to work harder and try and find some more pace. We want to be on the attack. We don’t want to be just collecting points its not our style.
“The FPR cars are extremely quick so we’re going to have to find something to match them.”
The fourth fancied title combatant, Will Davison, endured the worst Saturday of the quartet.
Turned around from sixth in the opening segment, the FPR driver finished 17th and is now 159 points from the lead.
Davison has vowed to fight back aggressively today, cheekily noting on Twitter that it “seems like there’s no rules anymore” following his team-mate’s collision with Lowndes.
Today’s action will see back-to-back 15 minute qualifying sessions following by a pair of 100km races in the afternoon.
