Red Bull Racing Australia have claimed the PIRTEK Enduro Cup for the second consecutive year with Jamie and PD taking out the last race and the endurance title at the Gold Coast 600.
Both Holden pilots produced a faultless drive to claim a convincing race win and the championship-within-a-championship, which is awarded to the pairing that has accumulated the most points over the three endurance events.
“What a big win today!” Jamie said afterwards. “We were happy to qualify second and PD had a great start to the race and got to the front, which put us in the best possible position from the get go.
“When it was my time to jump in the car I was getting ready for a big battle with Shane Van Gisbergen but unfortunately he ended up with a drive through penalty which put him to the back of the pack.
“The car was great today, I couldn’t fault it and PD had a flawless performance. It’s really special to win at our home race and then to top it off with the PIRTEK Enduro Cup win was the cherry on top.”
After qualifying in third, Lowndesy and Richo fell victim to a safety car, which led to a strategy change, leaving them at the back of the field. Lowndesy got his wings out after that and came through the field to finish 11th.
“We had a great qualifying session today, I think it was a credit to the team to bounce back after yesterday,” Lowndesy said.
“When it came to the race, both my co-driver Steve Richards and I struggled with the rear tyre life but we still had really good car speed. Strategy went against us today, the team made a call not to pit, hoping to get by the safety car but we didn’t and ended up at the back of the grid.
“We had a good fight back so we still got some really good points but it was disappointing because we were running in the top-five for most of the day. The silver lining is that we’ve come out of the weekend with a straight car, it’s great to see Jamie up on the podium taking a win for the team and we’ll move on now to Phillip Island.”
Jamie has extended his lead to 2,835 points over Winterbottom on 2,433. Lowndesy is now in fourth on 2,331 points. Next stop, Phillip Island!
