Motorsport: Yas win kicks off title hunt

Jamie Whincup. Photo / Supplied

Holden driver Jamie Whincup's chase to get his V8 Supercar title back couldn't have got off to a better start at a Yas Marina circuit he's quickly making his own.

Whincup claimed his third win from as many starts at the spectacular Abu Dhabi track, streaking away in the opening lap to win by a 13 second margin in the 200km season opener.

Ford's Alex Davison completed an impressive second-place finish in a great day out for Stone Brothers Racing, with team-mates Shane van Gisbergen (New Zealand) and Tim Slade finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Mark Winterbottom was third, beginning his campaign with a podium finish but could have been ahead of Davison had it not been for a costly pit stop midway through the race.

Whincup, denied a hat-trick of championship titles last year by James Courtney, was delighted to make his 2011 launch a winning one.

"It's important to get off to a good start and that's exactly what we did today," he said. "We didn't quite get it off the line well, that's just driver error ... I was able to get Alex in the first lap and was able to control the race from there."

Davison claimed just his second podium, after a second place in Darwin in 2009, and he was clearly delighted after a difficult 2010 when he finished 21st in the standings.

"Fresh start. We got a new car towards the end of last year, we've got a new engineer at the end of last week in Dan Kroehn who's doing a great job and it's good. We've shut a few people up but it's also good to start building a solid base up for the championship."

Winterbottom was philosophical, saying he would rather errors like that happen now than later in the season when it could decide a title.

"We've had a few people change in the team and had a guy on the spike for the first time and things happen," he said. "He got three out of four right and unfortunately it was the one that was under pressure and let Alex get in front.

"We have to do them now, not at the championship end. It's just a matter of learning, trial and error.

"It's just about getting those guys used to what their roles and hopefully not do it again."

At least Winterbottom enjoyed a better start to the year than Courtney, who had a shocking first day behind the wheel for his new Holden Racing Team.

The 30-year-old had steering damage and had to settle for a lowly 26th place finish.

New Zealand's Greg Murphy finished 23rd. The Yas V8 400 finished overnight with another 200km race.

- AAP