Motorsport: Lowndes takes out Tassie V8 race

Craig Lowndes drives the Team Vodafone Holden. Photo / Getty Images

Holden star Craig Lowndes closed the margin on his championship rivals by winning Saturday's V8 Supercar race at the Symmons Plains circuit in Tasmania.

Lowndes never looked back after getting the jump over pole-sitter Garth Tander at the start of 50-lap race, going on to win by more than four seconds from Tander.

New Zealand veteran Greg Murphy did his hopes of finding a new team to drive with in 2011 no harm with a third-place finish, his first podium of the year.

But it was the win, and the 150 championship points that provides, that mattered most with Lowndes' championship rivals enduring tough days at the 2.4km circuit.

His teammate, and two-time championship winner, Jamie Whincup came in sixth, while championship leader James Courtney could only manage an 11th place finish.

Courtney now leads the title race by just over 40 points from Whincup, with Lowndes under 200 points behind the Ford star with five races left in the year.

The Tasmania round concludes on Sunday with an all-in qualifying session in the morning before a 200km race in the afternoon.

- AAP