V8 Supercars: Whincup defeats Lowndes in race one

Jamie Whincup took a big slice out of Mark Winterbottom's V8 Supercars championship lead by beating Triple Eight Holden team-mate Craig Lowndes to race one victory at Queensland Raceway.

After filling the front row, Lowndes and Whincup edged away from the pack as one in the first half of the race, with the reigning champion clinging tightly to his teammate's tail.

When Lowndes ran wide onto the front straight just after half-distance, Whincup got a run and grabbed the lead into Turn 1. He went in too deep and Lowndes was able to slice back through, but a dive at Turn 3 got Whincup ahead for good, and he then pulled away to win by 4.6 seconds.

Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin was a lonely third. He will start on pole for Saturday's second race.

While Fabian Coulthard had a very quiet race to fourth, the battle behind was fraught. Winterbottom only qualified seventh, but passed former Ford Performance Racing teammate Will Davison's Erebus Mercedes mid-race and then closed in on the Holden Racing Team Commodore of James Courtney.

The points leader dived past Courtney as they started the first lap, but Courtney immediately retaliated, giving Davison another shot back at Winterbottom too.

After a wild final half-lap, Courtney, Winterbottom and Davison crossed the line covered by just 0.2s, with Winterbottom's lead over Whincup down to 72 points and an 11th-place start looming in race two, where Whincup will be on the second row. Just behind this group, Garth Tander muscled his way through to eighth from 15th on the grid.