Lowndes reveals the secret behind revival
V8 Supercars champion Craig Lowndes says he has rediscovered his passion for racing, crediting a new engineer for his emergence as a genuine title contender this season.
The three-times championship winner will climb behind the wheel at Barbagallo Raceway today buoyed by a blossoming partnership with lead engineer Grant McPherson and an historic achievement within his grasp.
Lowndes, 40, needs one more win to become the first driver to achieve 100 race victories in V8s.
He is also gunning at this weekend’s Perth SuperSprint to become just the second racer in 17 years to secure four successive pole positions.
The only other driver to achieve the feat in that period was Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom in 2011.
McPherson was working as Winterbottom’s engineer before switching to Red Bull Racing Australia this season.
Lowndes said the partnership had breathed fresh life into his racing career.
“His mentality and the way he thinks about cars and the way he wants to set the car up suits my style, which has been fantastic,” Lowndes said.
“We’ve gelled really quickly so early in the season and that’s something that’s really important. I am excited about this weekend and I’m excited about the rest of the year as well.
“Grant has some great ideas. He keeps pushing the limits.
“I think the change helped me. It could have gone either way. It’s gone the positive side.”
Lowndes secured two race wins from a clean sweep of pole positions in the previous round in Tasmania in a sign of the partnership’s benefits.
The V8s veteran is third in the championship standings, 23 points behind leader and teammate Jamie Whincup.
Lowndes said getting on the front row of the grid was the secret to winning at the Wanneroo circuit. His 15 race victories in Perth are the most achieved by any V8s driver.
“We’re coming to a track that we’ve had great success at in the past, which gives me a lot of confidence,” Lowndes said.
Whincup — the most successful driver in V8s history with six of the past seven titles — has leapt out of the blocks in 2015 after slow starts in his past two championship-winning years.
However, he said he had not forgotten his “shocker” in Perth last season.
“We’ve had some good runs here but last year we qualified 13th and then finished 17th in the first race,” Whincup said.
“We just didn’t have the pace.”
WA racer Dean Fiore will drive for Nissan Motorsport at Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast this season for the second straight year.
