Reigning Champion Garth Tander may not have won a raffle at Eastern Creek but at least he now has a race win under his belt after streeting the field in the first of three races at round two of the V8 Supercar Championship Series in Sydney.

Tander put the Toll Holden Racing team back on top with the win from Jim Beam Racing’s Will Davison – his best result in the Series – and Championship leader Jamie Whincup.

“I haven’t even won a raffle here before,” said Tander who registered his first win for the team since switching from the sister outfit HSV Dealer Team.

“It was a pretty good day after a pretty dark weekend at Clipsal (Adelaide two weeks ago). It proves both cars (Mark Skaife finished sixth after a missed start) are very strong.

“I didn’t need to make any statements to anyone after Adelaide.”

Tander jumped the field from the start leaving his boss Skaife in his wake. In fact Skaife’s missed start cost him three places as he slipped back into fifth from the front row of the grid.

“I had a pretty clear track,” said Tander.

“It was a really, really good start. Then it was a matter of putting the head down for the first two laps and pulling a lead. From there it was look after the tyres and give the team less pressure at the pit stop.”

It was the Toll HRT challenge in qualifying with Tander and Skaife shooting it out for pole position. Tander won the battle with his team-mate starting next to him for an all-HRT grid for the first time since Skaife and Todd Kelly in Darwin in 2005.

Housemates Will Davison and Jamie Whincup put on a great show on lap one as they diced for second and third places behind the runaway Tander. They showed each-other the utmost respect, perhaps preferring a quiet Monday breakfast at home than a fight that ended in tears.

Davison also had a cracker of a start going from fifth to second. Davison snuck from Whincup away out of the pits into clear air behind Tander and the chase for Tander was on.

“It took me a second to get me breath after the start and work out where everybody was,” Davison said. “I worked out pretty quickly I had a good car underneath me so from there it was a matter of focusing on the leader.”

Whincup blamed driver error for his pit stop.

“I had a good drink instead of hitting the pit lane limiter and all of a sudden I was nowhere,” he said. There is a button drivers press to get a drink and another that prevents them from going more than 40km per hour that they press while in pit lane.

For Davison it was another great result for the Jim Beam team that has made no secret that it has been in financial trouble for more than a year following the collapse of former backer Westpoint. The Dick Johnson owned team has slowly rebuilt itself and is now getting results.

“We are improving all the time, that’s pretty obvious to everyone,” Davison said.

“Getting to the front of the field doesn’t happen overnight. We are setting our goals higher and higher each time. We are still in old cars so we are probably not looking at top three just yet but we are looking at five or six and picking up the odd podium along the way.”

Young flyer Lee Holdsworth continued his upward surge with a cracking qualifying to come in seventh while Stone Brother’s 18-year-old Shane Van Gisbergen again defied his age to start from 10th on the grid well ahead of far more experienced veterans.

Paul Dumbrell was also on the money in the HSV Dealer team car as he slotted into ninth while Team BOC’s Cameron McConville, third in Adelaide two weeks ago, again impressed by qualifying fifth behind Whincup.

Stone Brothers’ James Courtney stole back bragging rights from former team-mate Russell Ingall. Courtney qualified sixth with Ingall a distant 22nd in the Supercheap Auto car that is gradually being re-built to become a serious contender.

Courtney finished fifth in race one with Ingall 12th.

Source:V8 Latest News