Motorsport: Whincup wins as storm sweeps in

Jamie Whincup leads during the Sydney downpour. Photo / Getty Images

David Reynolds called for Noah and his ark to be on standby and Todd Kelly said even his undies were wet after a downpour ruined yesterday's second race at the Sydney NRMA 500.

Sydney Olympic Park was pelted by heavy rain about 15 laps into the 37-lap race, flooding parts of the street circuit. As the field filed into the pits when the water hit, David Wall stayed out on track and crashed his Ford into a concrete barrier.

The race was suspended for about 20 minutes and resumed under safety car but it was too dangerous to continue and officials ended the race with Whincup winning from Kiwi duo Shane Van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin.

"That was pretty loose out there," Whincup said. "We weren't sure what was going to happen. I was thinking they were going to try and do a one-lap dash at the end which would have been carnage.

"There aren't enough dollars up pit lane to be tearing cars up. So, at the end of the day, race control did the right thing. There were big rivers going across the track."

Others agreed. "Very, very wet out there," Reynolds said.

"I told the boys ring Noah, get the animals ready, because we need an ark out there."

"Well that was interesting," Kelly said "Wet, wet, wet. Everything's wet. Wet car inside, wet car outside, wet track. Even wet undies."

The results over the two races saw Van Gisbergen climb to third in the championship standings. No one can catch Whincup, who notched up his 88th and 89th V8 Supercars win - and 13th and 14th for the year - at the season-ending Sydney 500. Today he will be crowned with a record sixth title in seven years.

But Van Gisbergen has overtaken Craig Lowndes in the championship race by 26 points, jumping to third on the table, and is now 87 away from Ford's Mark Winterbottom ahead of today's 250km race.

"It's up to the other guys for me to move up, so I've just got to get the best results I can and them to make mistakes," said Van Gisbergen, who finished sixth in the first race after starting in 19th.

It was a different picture earlier in the afternoon, when Whincup started from second on the grid but quickly took control to win ahead of Holden's Tim Slade and Reynolds (Ford).

"Good times. There's plenty of pride on the line and we want to round the year off in the best possible way," Whincup said.

There was no smile on the face of Whincup's team-mate Lowndes who suffered suspected cracked ribs after a heavy shunt into a concrete barrier during qualifying.