Prodrive Racing Australia driver David Reynolds has taken victory in the seventy lap feature race at Hidden Valley Raceway, scoring only his second ever V8 Supercar win. After taking pole position earlier in the day Reynolds was unable to maintain first place heading into turn one, second place starter Fabian Coulthard getting the hole shot.
With the long nature of the race, many took to the pit lane in the early stages for an alternative strategy causing lapped traffic to stifle Coulthards charge.
Reynolds was handed a lifeline in the early stages of the race when race leader Coulthard caught Andre Heimgartner on the Super Black Racing drivers rejoin lap at turn four. Forced to take evasive action, Coulthard ran onto the dirty side of the circuit losing grip and running off the track.
Red Bull Racing decided to roll the strategic dice, opting to take the soft tyres from the rear of Jamie Whincup’s Commodore and switch them to the front. The decision later proved to be a disastrous as Whincup’s right front tyre began to delaminate; teammate Craig Lowndes suffering the same fate just a matter of laps later.
The race wasn’t all smooth sailing for Reynolds though, the effective race leader locking up and running off the road at turn four, skipping the following hairpin. Race control later deemed the manoeuvre an evasive action, Reynolds avoiding any penalty.
With the top three drivers all on the soft tyre lap times neared those set in qualifying – Reynolds, Mostert and Coulthard all separated by just over a second.
Ultimately Reynolds held out teammate Mostert to secure the teams second 1-2 finish of the weekend; Reynold securing his first race win since 2013 at the Gold Coast 600.
“It was just a relief really, I had to do sixty laps on the soft tyre which is unheard of really,” said Reynolds
“It’s just an awesome car to drive. The Bottle O car performed well all weekend, we were just a little bit slow yesterday, but we turned it around and won the race. “
The V8 Supercar Championship moves to Townsville for the Castrol Edge Townsville 400 Super Sprint over July 10-12.