Whincup closes in on fourth title

Closing in ... Jamie Whincup whips round a bend at Winton Motor Raceway. Source: Mark Horsburgh / News Limited

Jamie Whincup has put himself on the cusp of a fourth V8 Supercars championship with victory in Saturday's opening race at Winton in Victoria.

Holden driver Whincup beat teammate Craig Lowndes and Ford driver Lee Holdsworth in the 47-lap event.

By finishing ahead of his only championship rival Mark Winterbottom, who had a horror day, Whincup leads the season standings by 326 points.

Whincup will wrap up this year's title if he leads by more than 300 points after Sunday's race two at Winton.

Winterbottom slid from third to fourth as Holdsworth passed him on the final corner - Winterbottom's car ran out of fuel late and only just managed to cross the finish line.

He had started in pole position, but lost out to Whincup at the start.

Then a first-lap safety car, after Jason Bright crashed out, led Winterbottom's Ford Performance Racing team to immediately call him into the pits to change to soft tires.

While the tires were faster, Winterbottom lost several positions with the pit stop and struggled to get out of the mid-pack.

Meanwhile, Whincup's Team Vodafone kept him on a hard compound tire and, while he lost the lead to Ford driver James Moffat on lap six, he stayed in touch with the frontrunners throughout.

He eventually pitted on lap 26 for his change to soft tires, and the strategy proved a winning move.

Whincup took the lead from Moffat with 11 laps remaining - the Dick Johnson Racing driver eventually sliding to fifth place after leading for most of the race.

Earlier, Winterbottom had posted the fastest time in qualifying, outspeeding Whincup with a 1min 23.1443sec lap to Whincup's 1:23.3019 to secure pole position.

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