Jamie Whincup took his first win of the 2017 Supercar series in race 14 on Sunday evening. He is only the second Australian to stand on the top step of the rostrum this year, the other being Chaz Mostert, with Kiwi drivers, Shane van Gisbergen, Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin claiming the other 12 wins between them.

It wasn't an easy victory however with Scott McLaughlin chasing him all the way, the DJR Team Penske driver losing the lead to Whincup due to the Red Bull coming in a lap earlier for his first pitstop. Then when Scott came in, he took on more fuel, and as a result lost track position to Jamie. This win also brings him level with Craig Lowndes on race wins in the series at 105 apiece.

Whincup was over the moon with his return to victory lane...

"Overall I'm unbelievably happy with that, it's been a long six months trying to get my first win and what a place to do it here in Townsville,” he said. “It's a place I really love racing at and it's almost a home event for us being in Queensland.”

“The car was great, full credit to the crew, they gave me a really quick car which was the difference, a car to be able to fight the other guys with. So a massive team effort, we dug deep and got the chocolates. It's going to be a long old grid for the next six months 'til Newcastle but we're up for the challenge and will keep our heads down."

McLaughlin was dominant in qualifying, starting the race from pole. He kept the race lead until the first round of pit stops when he took more fuel than Whincup, with a 2s gap maintained across most of the next stint. Whincup was then able to maintain the lead after the second round of stops.

McLaughlin pushed hard, and despite the handicap of a cool suit failure, finished only 1.4s behind Whincup for a solid second place at the end of the 200km affair. He leaves Townsville having taken another two pole positions, a race win and a podium alongside the championship lead.

“I lost my cool suit at the end of the race there, which was tough,” he said. “But well done to Jamie, it was only a matter of time that he was going to win a race. Thanks to all my guys at Shell V-Power Racing, great to get another podium and continue the consistency.”

Joining them on the rostrum in third place was the second Red Bull of the reigning series champion, Shane van Gisbergen.

“The car was alright. We made some good changes overnight and the boys did a great job of fixing the car after the issues yesterday,” Shane said. “We actually weren't that happy after qualifying, but we made a good change for the shootout. We're learning all the time with these new tyres."

"Then in the race the first stint was atrocious. We lost the race there. I think the gap to the leaders after that got smaller and smaller, we had really good speed. It's a bit baffling what went wrong. There are some positives and I think we've got enough information to move forward. "

"There's a couple of areas of the car we need to make better, but I don't think we fully understand why we're quick sometimes and why we're not other times. It's the inconsistency of every tyre set that we don't understand. There's a lot of work to be done, but it's a good day for the team to have two fast cars and I think Craig (Lowndes, TeamVortex) was fast as well moving through the field.”

Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert were fourth and fifth respectively after a much stronger weekend here in Townsville.

“This weekend has been quite positive,” said Chris O'Toole – Team Manager. “To have all four cars in the top-10 shootout is a huge achievement for us and the whole team should be immensely proud."

"We worked hard in the lead up to this event and harder all weekend and while we didn't get on the podium again we are definitely on the right track. Tyre degradation was a pretty big problem for us today so we'll be looking closely at that.”

Garth Tander and James Moffat finished sixth and seventh with Will Davison eighth, James Courtney ninth and Craig Lowndes a fantastic tenth after starting 21st on the grid.