Lowndes makes it one for the oldies
They weren’t the quickest, but Craig Lowndes and Steve Richards – combined age 90 years – were on form when it counted at Mount Panorama
Craig Lowndes knows it better than anyone.
You don’t have to be the fastest to win at
Mount Panorama; you only have to be the fastest when it counts.
With 27 laps to go of last weekend’s Bathurst 1000, 44-year-old Lowndes and 46-year-old co-driver Steve Richards took control. The weekend’s pacesetters had been hit with issues both physical and mechanical, and the veterans were left to take as dominant a win as Lowndes has ever experienced, despite their Triple Eight Holden leading relatively few laps.
It was an odd week in central New South Wales. There were five hours of practice leading into qualifying, but it was mostly useless. Persistent rain meant crews often opted to not even head on track – Erebus Racing didn’t turn a wheel until three sessions in – with the only few minutes of dry practice running coming during a dedicated co-driver session.
So the primary drivers were faced with the exceptional situation of heading into qualifying without having turned a lap on a slick tyre. And the cream quickly rose to the top. Within 20 minutes Jamie Whincup had set a mid-2m04s lap, something that three years ago would have been considered nearly impossible. It got even better. When a thrilling hour came to an end, Whincup had been forced to improve to a 2m04.109s to take provisional pole in his Triple Eight-run Red Bull Holden, with David Reynolds (Erebus Holden) and Scott Mclaughlin (DJR Penske Ford) less than two tenths back.
It wasn’t all about spectacular times, with a feel-good factor coming from Lowndes. After missing the Top 10 Shootout for the past two years, he qualified for the singlelap dash on what was his last ever attempt before retiring as a primary driver. Not that the Shootout itself was that impressive for Lowndes, the veteran slipping from sixth in qualifying to ninth on the grid.
The star of the Shootout was, initially at least, Anton de Pasquale. The Bathurst 1000 rookie posted a 2m04.3498s running second, despite “going bush” at the last corner. The next six guys couldn’t get near it, not even series leader Shane van Gisbergen. In the end it took a stunning 2m04.0589s from team-mate Reynolds to deny de Pasquale a shock pole, Whincup then falling just 0.009s short of the benchmark as he split the Erebus Holdens.
The two stages of qualifying suggested that Reynolds/luke Youlden and Whincup/ Paul Dumbrell were the pairings to beat, and the opening 40 laps of Sunday’s race did likewise. With Reynolds having bolted from pole, he was able to hand over to Youlden after a single stint with a 4.9s lead. Dumbrell took over the #1 Red Bull Holden in third at the same time, but was able to clear Earl Bamber in the sister car (started by van Gisbergen) for second as he eased onto the back of Youlden.
Ten laps later the co-drivers found themselves back in the lane, a safety car to
retrieve Jack Perkins’s broken Commodore sparking an all-in round of stops. The two Red Bull cars came in running second and third, which meant servicing Dumbrell as quickly as possible was crucial, as Bamber was waiting impatiently behind.
Three laps after the restart, Dumbrell’s front-right wheel unexpectedly parted ways with the rest of the car. In the rush to limit the damage of the double stack, the wheelnut hadn’t been tightened properly – the team that so rarely makes mistakes had made a huge one.
Funnily enough, Dumbrell had found himself running on three wheels during Saturday’s Super2 race after a clash with Dean Fiore. He would later joke that the experience proved very handy as he hustled the Red Bull car across the top of The Mountain without a right-front, desperate to get back to the pits so that maybe he could avoid going any more than a lap down. It was a genuine case of get back quick, or crash trying.
He got back quick, the Triple Eight crew fitting a new wheel, a new front bumper, and sending Dumbrell back out a lap and a half down. The front-roll bar adjustment had been ground away to nothing, but that would have to be fixed later, if a safety car rolled the right way…
Back at the front of the field, Youlden found himself under pressure from Alex Premat in the Penske Ford. On lap 45 the Frenchman executed the first proper change for the lead, but it only lasted until the next round of stops. DJR Team Penske took too long swapping Premat for Mclaughlin, meaning Reynolds could replace Youlden and regain control of the race.
It looked for all money that the 2017 winners were going to go back to back. Youlden jumped back in for his final stint, before handing back to Reynolds when a safety car conveniently fell on the very lap that the majority of the co-drivers satisfied their minimum requirement at the wheel.
The safety car meant Reynolds, now in for a triple-stinter to the end, had lost a bit of track advantage. But he had speed, and Lowndes, who had floated up the order to second, hadn’t shown any signs of being a threat to win the race.
In fact, the #888 Holden was a little lucky to still be in contention, given that Richards had run wide on his way into pitlane during his stint and nearly beached himself at pit entry. But thanks to a turn of speed from Lowndes during a patch of light rain, and clean stops while the likes of van Gisbergen/ Bamber and Mclaughlin/premat had delays, the third T8 entry was sitting second.
When the race restarted with 65 laps to go it seemed inevitable that Reynolds would pull away, but he didn’t, at least not right away. Instead Lowndes piled on the pressure, until Reynolds kicked into gear, broke his own lap record, and established a small gap.
That little wobble in pace after the restart seemed innocent enough – it could easily have been tyres coming up to pressure – but there was something more sinister at play – it was the first sign of Reynolds starting to lose concentration. When he came in for what should have been his penultimate stop, Reynolds asked the team to remove a tear-off from the windscreen as he had been struggling to see for most of the stint. They did, but when he got back out on track he realised the view in front of him was still as blurry as it had been before. Now the dash looked fuzzy too. Something wasn’t right.
Then came the cramps. Reynolds suddenly didn’t know if he was at full throttle or not; he didn’t know if he was applying enough brake pressure. With 27 laps to go he was powerless to stop Lowndes charging into the lead. Conferring with the team over the radio, a decision was made to keep Reynolds in the car for the final stint. He’d be handed a drink bottle full of electrolyte-heavy fluid through the window and he’d battle through, hoping to hang on to second. But he was so exhausted he couldn’t even keep his foot on the clutch during the stop, the rear wheels spinning before the car came off its stands.
That meant a drivethrough penalty, which dumped Reynolds to seventh. After a heartbreaking apology to his team over the radio, Reynolds served his penalty, then came straight back into the lane waving the white flag, finally ready to hand over to Youlden. On a day when they had all they needed to win, they finished 13th.
While this was happening, Lowndes was cruising to a fairytale final Bathurst victory as a Supercars full-timer. With Scott Pye’s Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden seven-odd seconds behind him, Lowndes – not even wearing a cool suit – made light work of the final stint and a half.
After just over six hours of racing, Lowndes crossed the line to secure his seventh Bathurst crown, and a fifth for Richards. It was their second win together and, with Lowndes set to return to Red Bull colours for the long-distance races next year, more than likely their last. “[The 2006 win] is sort of the special one because of the emotions that went behind it, but this is definitely right up there,” said Lowndes.
“It’s probably the second best because now I know I’m not going to be a full-time driver next year and these guys can all battle it out. But I’ll be back here next year as a co-driver and to have a bit of fun…”
Pye and co-driver Warren Luff finished second for a second consecutive year, while Mclaughlin and Premat came home third.
Chaz Mostert and James Moffat were fourth, despite tangling with a Tickford Ford team-mate earlier in the race (see panel, p47), with van Gisbergen and Bamber finishing fifth to help SVG hang on to a narrow 19-point series lead over fellow
New Zealander Mclaughlin.
As for Whincup and Dumbrell, they did get the right mix of safety cars to get back onto the lead lap, and showed plenty of pace during the closing stages of the race. But 10th was as high as Whincup could climb, meaning that the pair’s horror Bathurst run since winning in 2012 continues for at least another year.