V8 Supercars Round 8KEY POINTS:
SYDNEY - Holden driver Lee Holdsworth embarrassed the rest of the field in heavy rain at Oran Park yesterday to run away with his maiden Australian V8 Supercar round win.
The rain had eased after Ford's Craig Lowndes won race two earlier in the day, but another downpour came just as the drivers did their warmup lap for the third and final sprint.
The weather change caused half the field to start out of the pits as they opted immediately for wet tyres.
But Holdsworth chose to start on wets and the ploy paid dividends as the 24-year-old opened up a 6.2s gap by the end of lap one and stretched it to as much as 49s before a safety car bunched the field on lap 23 of 46.
Three more safety-car periods followed and Holdsworth eventually held on to win by 6.3s from Garth Tander in second and Russell Ingall third.
Holdsworth ended up with 47 points to take out the eighth round, with Steven Richards and Craig Lowndes equal on 38 points to share the podium.
Lowndes had a shocking pitstop in race three and fell from position one to last after the first lap.
It was an opportunity missed for the 33-year-old who could have chipped away at Holden's championship-leading teammates Rick Kelly and Tander, who both had poor rounds by their standards.
Kelly finished second, 15th and 15th in the three races to finish with 24 points.
Tander, meanwhile, had a did not finish, 19th and capitalised on some late carnage in race three to end up second.
Kelly's day started badly when he was bumped off on lap one as Ford's Steven Richards nudged Whincup into Kelly in a domino effect.
The incident pushed Kelly from second back to 29th in the 31-car field and he later got hit by Paul Morris and lost control again.
Morris, recently voted by his peers as the dirtiest and most dangerous driver in the series, was being investigated.
But he remained in good spirits after the race, giving a cheeky response to the results of the Auto Action magazine poll.
"I'll have to go have a shower," he joked. "No, I'm proud of it, it's good. I reckon all the other guys are pussies anyway."
Mark Skaife won Saturday's opening race in the dry but he could not handle yesterday's wet conditions.
"It's as bad a car as I've ever driven in the wet," said Skaife, after coming 20th in race two and failing to finish race three.
The championship now moves to the endurance races at Sandown next month and Bathurst in October.
- AAP
