Will Davison has held off a late charge from Craig Lowndes to secure Ford Performance Racing’s seventh consecutive V8 Supercars Championship race victory

The Tradingpost Falcon took the chequered flag at the Phillip Island circuit 0.56s ahead of Lowndes, who had made his way past Shane van Gisbergen, Jamie Whincup and Jason Bright in the final 10 laps.

Bright held on for third, while Van Gisbergen, Whincup, Mark Winterbottom, Jonathon Webb, David Reynolds, Lee Holdsworth and Garth Tander rounded out the top 10.

The results see Davison return to the lead of the championship, with Whincup now 10 points adrift in second.

Race 11 contained four Safety Car periods – the first of which triggered a rush to the pitlane on just the fourth lap of the race.

The timing of the yellow split the field into two distinct strategies, with those pitting guaranteed to make it home on just one further stop, and those staying out likely to need more Safety Cars in order to cut the race into two equal stints.

Davison led the charge to the pits and would eventually restart seventh behind Jason Bright, Lee Holdsworth, Alexandre Premat, David Wall, Garth Tander and Michael Caruso – who had all elected to stay out.

Davison made his way to second before the next round of pitstops began midrace – eventually emerging with the lead when Bright made his one and only stop with 20 of the 45 laps remaining.

The Tradingpost Falcon driver held Bright at bay for two restarts following debris-induced Safety Car periods, before measuring the gap to the charging Lowndes across the final five laps.

Lowndes had earlier squandered his pole position by falling to 10th with a bad start.

The bad start allowed Reynolds to lead the opening lap but was soon demoted to third by team-mates Davison and Winterbottom.

The Orrcon Steel entry dropped five spots in the early pit shuffle after being forced to queue behind team-mate Davison. Winterbottom raised the ire of TeamVodafone by slowing considerably on the circuit on the way into pitlane in order to allow Davison to extend his lead, thereby minimising the cost of the double-stacking.

There was carnage further back in the pitlane, with Fabian Coulthard and Karl Reindler making contact while both trying to negotiate their way around Tim Slade.

Coulthard would eventually finish 24th after making multiple unscheduled pitstops thanks to damage from a deflated right-front tyre.

The race was little better for Reindler, who spun off the circuit at Turn 1 in an incident with Michael Patrizi, resulting in the second Safety Car period.

Steve Owen and Alexandre Premat found themselves in the wars at the opposite end of the race. Premat spun at Turn 4 after contact with Owen, with the Fujitsu Commodore subsequently hit head-on by David Wall in the resulting melee.

Wall pulled off into retirement soon after, while both Owen and Premat appeared to slide off on fluid dropped by the Wilson Security Commodore on the following laps.

Joining Wall on the retirements list were Rick Kelly and Tony D’Alberto, who both suffered from mechanical failures.

D’Alberto’s issue left the Hiflex Falcon stranded on the circuit, causing the first Safety Car period.

The 2012 V8 Supercars Championship will continue at Darwin’s Hidden Valley circuit in four weeks time.

See below for the full Race 11 result

See below for the updated points standings after 11 races