IPSWICH - Desperate to bounce back from a horror start to the Queensland 300, Holden young gun Will Davison returned fire to V8 Supercars series leader Jamie Whincup by taking out the second and final race at Ipswich yesterday.
Davison was inconsolable on Saturday after failing to finish race one
and watching Ford's Whincup extend his championship lead over his Holden rival by taking line honours in the 33-lap opener.
But Davison ensured the series leader would be looking over his shoulder as the championship heads to the crucial endurance rounds by claiming the 65-lap second race, finishing 14 seconds ahead of Whincup's teammate Craig Lowndes.
Despite finishing a distant 13th in race two on Sunday, Whincup still leads the series with 2,007 points ahead of Davison (1,824), his Holden teammate Garth Tander (1,479) and Lowndes (1,478) after nine of the 15 rounds.
"Yesterday was probably as tough as it gets ... we were pretty down in the dumps," Davison said on Sunday.
"I just went to bed and came back today a different person.
"This gives us great confidence heading into a couple of very, very big races for the championship."
Veteran Russell Ingall (Holden) snatched third in race two from pole-sitter Mark Winterbottom (Ford) after a strategy to wait until the last minute to switch to soft sprint tyres paid dividends.
With Davison enjoying a huge lead, the hard charging Ingall was praying for the field to be brought together by a safety car but a bingle surprisingly never came.
Not that Davison didn't have his anxious moments.
With 14 laps left, he copped a "door banger" from rookie Tim Slade - Ingall's teammate, no less - and for one scary moment appeared to be spearing off the track before recovering.
"Good man," Ingall jokingly said of Slade when Davison brought the incident up at the post-race press conference.
A remarkable start helped Davison jump from fifth to first by turn three on the opening lap.
In contrast, Whincup - who qualified third-fastest - was swamped on the grid in a reversal of fortune for the two drivers.
It was a remarkable turnaround by Davison after a nightmare result for his Holden Racing Team (HRT) on Saturday.
Tander also copped a dreaded DNF on Saturday after his engine blew with six laps left.
"It wasn't a good day in motorsport for us," HRT team manager Rob Crawford said in a major understatement.
The HRT crew worked away on Davison and Tander's Holdens until 11.30pm on Saturday and resumed at 6am on Sunday to get them right.
Lowndes also capped a great comeback after failing to finish race one with oil pressure problems.
Remarkably, Lowndes and Whincup's Ford team have now made the podium at 15 of the 16 races of 2009.
Ingall came home with a wet sail, setting a new Queensland Raceway lap record (1min:10.7640sec) barely 24 hours after teammate Slade had broken Tander's 10-year old mark at the track.
Almost 49,000 people attended the three-day race program at Ipswich, including more than 26,000 on Sunday.
The series moves to the Phillip Island endurance round, to be held from September 11-13.
- AAP
Young gun Will Davison set the pace in the second race at Queensland Raceway. Photo / Getty Images
IPSWICH - Desperate to bounce back from a horror start to the Queensland 300, Holden young gun Will Davison returned fire to V8 Supercars series leader Jamie Whincup by taking out the second and final race at Ipswich yesterday.
Davison was inconsolable on Saturday after failing to finish race one
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