Reynolds opens 2015 victory account

David Reynolds has taken his first V8 Supercars victory of the 2015 season after fending off Prodrive Racing Australia stablemate Chaz Mostert during the final race of the weekend at Darwin.

The Bottle-O Racing Team driver started the race from pole position but was initially unable to retain the top spot after losing out to Brad Jones Racing's Fabian Coulthard as the lights went out.

12 laps into the race, however, Coulthard made a crucial error and subsequently handed the lead back to the Ford Falcon FG X of Reynolds.

Reynold's was able to consolidate his position throughout the pit-stop phases of the 71-lap race but, like Coulthard, the Prodrive backed racer also fell off the circuit at the infamous when avoiding the Nissan Altima of Michael Caruso.

Despite his heart stopping moment, Reynolds re-gathered his composure to lead the Pepsi Max Ford of Mostert over the line by nine-tenths of a second.

Freightliner Racing's Coulthard was only a further six-tenths back in third position but was whole eight-seconds clear of his fellow Kiwi racer, Shane Van Gisbergen, in fourth.

In what was a mainly 'under the radar' weekend for Prodrive Ford's Mark Winterbottom, fifth position in race three still means the Pepsi Max Crew driver still comes away from the Darwin event in the championship lead ahead off Red Bull's Craig Lowndes.

After Winterbottom's fifth place for Ford, Holden locked out the remaining top-ten positions, headed by a fine drive from Nick Percat, who picked up sixth for LD Motorsports.

James Courtney was the top factory Holden effort in seventh ahead of Team BOC's Jason Bright and Supercheap Auto's Tim Slade in eighth and ninth while Dale Wood was the final Commodore in tenth.

In an effort to steal a march on the rest of the field through the pit-stop phase of the race, Triple Eight rolled the dice in going against the grain on tyre strategy.

The Red Bull Racing Australia squad attempted an audacious move for both Lowndes and Jamie Whincup to complete the race distance on the soft tyre. Their gamble proved futile as the pair were forced to pit with well over 20-laps of the race still to go after suffering with tyre delaminations.

Lowndes could only score 60-points in 15th while Whincup's championship defence took a larger blow as the defending six-time champion languished in 22nd position.