Motorsport: Whincup leaves it late for win

Jamie Whincup delivered a master class in driving at the opening round of the series in Adelaide for the Clipsal 500. Photo / Scott Wensley

Two-time defending Australian V8 Supercars champion Jamie Whincup well and truly slapped down the gauntlet at the opening round of the series in Adelaide for the Clipsal 500.

Whincup gave a master class in sublime driving as he hunted down Will Davidson over the closing stretch of the 78-lap race to rocket past the Ford driver on the last lap.

HRT driver Garth Tander came home in third with Whincup's Team Vodafone team-mate Craig Lowndes in a remarkable fourth place. Lowndes had to pit on lap 50 for a flat tyre that dropped him way down the field but it was Whincup's day and he'll be looking forward to today's race.

"It was a battle early on the race and hard work getting up to Craig [Lowndes]," said Whincup. "It was a tough start to the race but then I built momentum. Anyone who understands motorsport knows everything has to go right on the day to win and everything did turn my way today.

"Will [Davidson] could have made it difficult for me but it was obvious he was running out of fuel and he let me by, which was really great of him. It was an important race for me today [his dad died during the week] so we threw everything at it. We'll battle in the second race but for me it was all about today."

With a handful of laps to go it looked like Davidson had the race in the bag with a two-second buffer on Whincup.

On the penultimate lap though, Whincup was closing at a rapid pace and on the last lap was right on Davidson's tail pipe.

"What can you say? At the end of the day we gave it our best shot," said Davidson. "It's motorsport. It's a crazy game we play. I though I might have just hung in there.

"I saved as much fuel as I could but I didn't have much radio so couldn't talk to the crew. Obviously frustrating trying to conserve fuel then I heard Whincup's name over the radio.

"I thought there's no way he could catch me. But I saw him getting closer and closer but couldn't push on because I would have run out of fuel. The light came on during the second to last lap.

"There wasn't much more I could do as it coughed after turn eight so I had to let him through. That was that really."

Tander was philosophical about his third place but is looking forward to the second race of the weekend today.

"Thinking about it we should have come in a bit earlier but we're on the podium after going up and down the field all day. Good luck to Jamie especially after the week he's had but we'll get him in race two," said Tander.

During qualifying Lowndes celebrated his new three-year deal with Team Vodafone by making it into the top-10 shoot out and then putting together a flying lap to plant himself on pole with HRT driver Tander alongside him.

Van Gisbergen had showed scintillating pace all day during practice and easily made it into the shoot out but was a little loose in places on his flying lap and had to settle for 10th just behind fellow Kiwi Fabian Coulthard.

Van Gisbergen showed early pace and was on for a good finish at three-quarter distance but had an unscheduled pit stop that he never recovered from and had to settle for 11th. Coulthard was the best of the Kiwis driving a solid race coming home in sixth with his new Lockwood team.

Murphy unfortunately suffered panel damage and had to endure a lengthy pit stop resulting in a 24th place finish.