Lowndes eases to race one victory at Tasmania
Red Bull's Craig Lowndes has converted his hard fought pole position into a crushing race one victory at Symmons Plains to open his 2015 V8 Supercars account.
Lowndes made perfect use of his 38th career pole after taking immediate control of the race on a circuit which tends to lend fewer overtaking opportunities than most.
The Triple Eight driver masterfully quelled the attentions of Prodrive's Mark Winterbottom on the opening lap before setting about establishing an unassailable three-second buffer back to the Pepsi Max Falcon FG X.
Behind the serenity at the head of the field, the infamous turn four hairpin claimed its first victim right at the start of the race. An enraged Will Davison was the unlucky reciprocate of the first lap drama after it appears points leader James Courtney tagged the Erebus E63 into a race-denting spin.
Davison had been enjoying his best weekend of the campaign so far thanks to a strong qualifying performance, which allowed the Erebus driver to propel his E63 past Courtney into third. The incident though dropped Davison into 17th.
Tekno Autosport's Shane Van Gisbergen cleverly read the events occurring in front of him to produce a creative slingshot move around the outside of turn four, jumping multiple positions in the process.
The Kiwi's progress ended there though as the 2014 runner-up was forced to fend off Chaz Mostert, who in the end had to settle for fifth.
Unlike Lowndes, defending champion Jamie Whincup once again seemingly struggled to unlock his Red Bull Commodore's full potential. By race end, Whincup was a full ten-seconds off his team mate behind to finish sixth behind the Bottle-O Falcon of David Reynolds.
Holden Racing's Garth Tander picked up some more solid points in eighth to continue his consistent start to the season as Tim Slade and Fabian Coulthard rounded out the top ten.
Unbelievably, Volvo's Scott McLaughlin's running was cut premature when an undisclosed engine issue on the first lap compounded yet more misery upon the Kiwi's traumatic start to the 2015 season.
