Craig Lowndes and his Team Vortex went into the season finale at Homebush aiming to secure third place in the championship, however, due to two rather difficult days, the former champion was forced to settle for fourth.
Craig was in an intense battle with the Volvo of Scott McLaughlin and after Saturday’s race found himself 9 points behind the Kiwi racer. But Sunday proved to be a lot more challenging than expected and a late double stack under the safety car saw his hopes of clinching third slip slowly through his fingers.
However, despite not securing third place, Lowndsey is happy that they achieved their overall goal for the season, which was to finish in the top five.
"It was a bit of a difficult day," he said. "We gave ourselves a hard task in the race by qualifying where we did, we just didn't get the best out of it, so that's something we'll look into next year. Starting 14th, we tried to stay out of trouble, but we had a bit of contact at the beginning.”
“We had a strategy to run long and try to shorten up the second two stints, but with that late safety car, it brought us in with 30 laps to go, which wasn't ideal for us. We had to stack, so we lost a bit of time, but the car was good and we improved it from yesterday, so that's a positive we can take.”
"As a team, we set a goal to be in the top five in the championship this year. We ended up fourth - we probably could have been third - but to finish fourth this year was a great achievement and gives us something to work on for next year.”
