Craig Lowndes has had a cracker of a day at Symmons Plains, clean sweeping Saturday with two pole positions and two race wins, taking him to 99 career ATCC/V8 Supercars victories.
“It’s obviously been a fantastic day clocking up 99 wins,” he said, trademark smile firmly in place. “I’m thankful that I’ve been around long enough to get to that number. I’d love to get to 100 tomorrow, but my focus will be making the car fast.
“The car was working extremely well. The second race wasn’t quite as nice as Race One, but it’s still been a really nice car to drive. It’s been a great day and it’s fantastic that it’s all come together. It’s always nice when you come to this track and have great car speed when you’re at the front.
“Tomorrow’s race is 200km, which is a long way around this tight track and strategy will play a big part. Hopefully both Red Bull cars will have good speed and strategy.”
Meanwhile, Jamie couldn’t quite find the pace in his Red Bull Commodore for Race One, qualifying seventh and finishing where he started. It came together for the second 60km race though as he qualified and finished in second, completing a Red Bull Racing Australia 1-2.
“We seem to get it right here at Symmons Plains, but we’ve been behind the eight ball with Car 1 all weekend, so it was nice to get in the window today and have things start to make sense,” Jamie said.
“It was cracker pace by Lowndesy and the Car 888 crew, they deserved the two wins today. The 1-2 in Race Two is a great result for the team. We’re not looking at championship points yet, just trying to go fast and win races.
“We’ll reassess what happened today before the big 200km race tomorrow and see if we can be better. I think the balance of the format is good with sprint races and the long race tomorrow, so I think mixing it up is a good thing.”
Tomorrow sees the cars hit the track for a fourth and final practice session at 10:20am local time, with the 20 minute qualifying session at 11:55am and the 200km race at 2:00pm. Click here for TV schedules.
