Craig Lowndes had it all to do in the second and final race at the Barbagello Raceway in Perth on Sunday afternoon when he encountered drama from the get go. On the way to the grid Lowndsey's Team Vortex contender came to a standstill momentarily before he managed to get it going again. His mechanics then changed the ECU on the grid as they were awaiting the start of the race hoping that would fix the problem.
It didn't.
Craig then stalled at the start of the formation lap, which thankfully didn't cause too many other dramas as he was down in 18th place. He got it going again and then once again, it stalled going around the lap. It seems as if the problem was due to the pitlane limiter and when it was engaged, the engine was cutting out.
"It was a tough day. Qualifying didn't go to plan, we made a change, but it imbalanced the car overall. At a track like this, a tenth of a second means a hell of a lot as the lap time is under a minute," Craig said of his 18th place on the grid.
Deciding not to take any chances, Craig slowly brought the car around to start from the rear of the grid.
"We should have started 18th, but having electrical issues at the beginning of the race didn't help us at all," Craig said.
When the race got underway Craig instantly started the fight back. With a three place pit strategy the order of the day, Craig struck further disaster when he went to come in for his first stop and was tagged by the LDM of Alex Rullo, causing Craig to spin at pit entry. By the time this was corrected and he came in and had his stop, he came back out a lap down on the leaders.
“I went to the back of the grid, stayed out of trouble, but had an altercation coming into pit lane when I got turned around."
Looking like all was lost, Craig fought back instantly and unlapped himself very quickly, praying for a safety car that would enable him to catch up to the back of the field while he had nice competitive tyres on. This was not to be however, so he was forced to use pure speed and talent to work his way back, and that's exactly what he did, despite even more problems in his third and final stop…
Then we had a delaminated tyre," he said. "We had it all going on!"
Lowndsey's race was definitely a tough one when coming from starting last, to a lap down to finish eighth at the flag, it was definitely a drive to be proud of!
"Credit to the boys - we had a great strategy, the car was working well and I couldn't ask for any more to be honest. To fight our way from the back of the grid to the top 10 is a credit to the team that we didn't give up and we kept fighting on."
