Articles by Craig Lowndes

...and I'm confident I'll be the one to set them. Both tracks have had major circuit upgrades which will make them faster. I was at Eastern Creek on Monday and Tuesday doing promotional ride days with VIP guests and sponsors. Several parts of the track have been resurfaced and the kink at turns six and seven have been straightened making it faster. Besides, we have never used the soft tyre before at the Creek so that will also bring lap times down. I'm confident I can set the new lap records at both circuits because I was fastest at Eastern Creek in testing on the soft tyre last year and I had a clean sweep at Ipswich last year with pole and three race wins. We did the promo rides on the old Eastern Creek circuit which we will use next month, but I also had an opportunity to drive the new extension. V8 Supercars won't be racing on it this year for safety reasons and to allow the new track to "cure", but hopefully we will get on it next year. The new extension is challenging and technical which is great for drivers. It will also allow more passing opportunities which is great for the fans. It has big changes of elevation and terrific spectator vantage points. The initial part of the extension will be a one-lane set of chicanes that go over a blind crest and into a downhill hairpin where we will see some brave late braking and overtaking. You come out of the hairpin and start going uphill with a cambered right hander with more passing opportunities and then you rejoin the original track at the old turn nine at the back of the pits which we will approach faster than we have ever done, so that will be interesting. Ride days are not test days. We use a special two-seater car, not our race car and we are not allowed to log any data. The only thing we can do to the car is change tyres and add fuel, no set-up adjustments. It's not cheating. A lot of teams do it and the only advantage is that it gives the driver a bit more time behind the wheel and allows them to familiarise themselves with a track. We go to Queensland Raceway this Friday for an official test day in preparation for the following weekend's round. Our engineers will go through the normal testing program, focusing on car set-up combinations. We will also have to get our heads around the smoother track surface which has taken out the series of bumps in the braking areas of turns one and three. That means better car control, tyres on the ground all the time and higher corner speeds. As a result, we'll have faster lap times so our fuel consumption figures from last year will be useless and we'll have to establish a new strategy. Former F1 driver and all-round racing legend Jacques Villenueve has announced he will race in the next two rounds and I'm sure he will do much better than he did at Townsville. The Canadian driver has driven QR in testing and raced at Surfers Paradise in V8s before, so that will give him an advantage. Also, QR is not as technical as Townsville, so I'm sure he will be somewhere in the middle of the pack this time rather than racing at the back as he was last round.  

Unlike some of the other teams with different livery for each car according to the driver, I think we will be trying for a uniform team image.Vodafone is pulling out of a lot of its sponsorship commitments at the end of the season, so we have to find another major sponsor for next year. Our team principal, Roland Dane, plays his cards close to his chest but he must be closing in on a deal because he cancelled his trip to Italy last week to watch Casey Stoner race the MotoGP at Mugello.He's a big fan of Casey, motorbikes and Mugello so this must be important. Roland's prime focus at the moment is making sure we get another sponsor. I'm sure having separate car sponsors and different colours is an option, but understanding Roland his priority decision is a single replacement sponsor for both cars.It makes the team look sharper and cleaner. From a practical point of view it's also a lot easier to carry spare body parts when you have the same colours. Speaking of Casey, my race engineer, Jeromy (CORRECT!) Moore or "JJ", was at the Mugello race and I've seen the Facebook photos of him riding on the back of Casey's pit bike.Since Casey tested one of our cars last year the whole team has kept in touch with him. I'll be keen to catch up with JJ when he gets back to see if he has any insight into Casey's plans for next year since he's announced he's retiring from MotoGP.We're currently in the middle of a four-week break between the Townsville and the Ipswich rounds and we don't start testing and preparing for QR until next week. Meanwhile there's been a lot of talk about the incident at Townsville where Paul Morris took advantage of a loophole in the rules to run a combination of soft and hard tyres on Steve Owen's car.I think it was quite clever of him and quite sloppy of the rule writers. Paul was good at keeping it a secret until he needed to use it and good luck to him. We found a similar loophole last year where we ran our used soft tyre and it worked to our benefit.The officials again were quickly on to the loophole and closed it for the Sunday race, but the loophole shouldn't have been there in the first place. We're over halfway through the year and it's just too late in the season to be having rule changes.

Sunday's race was probably the first time I've had a battle with my teammate, Jamie Whincup, and it was gloves off, serious, on-the-limit racing with no holds barred. There were more nerves in the garage than between us, though. At the beginning of our battle we were aware of fuel and tyre wear, but with about 15 laps to go I put more pressure on and Jamie responded. In the last five laps we were both pretty well tapped out and had nothing left in either the cars or us. Jamie had track position and cleaner air and was able to make it work for him. I got past a couple of times but I couldn't make it stick because there was nothing left in the tyres and he still had enough grip left to make the switchback and drive out of the corners. It's a difficult circuit to make a pass without losing it on the next corner and it's even harder when you have little grip left. Our team principal, Roland Dane, has always said he is happy for us to race hard and fast and fair with no team orders. That's what the fans got on the weekend and the result was pretty spectacular racing. We gave each other racing room, no doubt about that, because the ultimate sin is we both end up with a DNF. The only pit communication I got was to bring the car home. I don't think there are team orders among a lot of the other teams, either. The FPR drivers are in contention for the championship like us, so you won't see any team orders there. Also, the SBR drivers are very passionate, DJR drivers always push to the finish and the HRT drivers just want to win. Our sport is the healthiest it has been in a long time and a lack of team orders is instrumental. I had a few issues over the weekend which have to be sorted out. We had the pit stacking problem again and I'd love to see if there is some other option as it hurt me enormously on the Saturday pushing me back from third to 20th. Thankfully I got back to fifth, but it was a big drive. The other issue was when I accidentally hit the limiter which prevents the engine from going over 4000 revs. The button is on the bottom right of the steering wheel and out of the way, but it still has to be accessible so you don't miss it when you go into the pits. I accidentally hit it earlier in the lap and hadn't noticed the alarm. It didn't activate until the revs dropped below 4000rpm when I slowed in the corner. We either have to shield the button better to make it foolproof - although we don't want it too difficult to activate - or we need a more prominent alarm light on the dash. It didn't hurt me too much, but it's one of those little glitches we have to sort out before it does have a big impact. Our new Premier Campbell Newman came to our pits at the weekend and seemed very enthusiastic about the event and happy with the crowd attendance. He's been a big team fan since he officially opened our new garage, but I didn't get a chance to talk to him about his government's future support for the Townsville and Gold Coast rounds. I suppose it's difficult to have two races in any state with government support, but I think the crowd numbers speak for themselves.  

So I'd like to invite the new Premier to come to Townsville this weekend to see for himself how popular this event is with motorsport fans in the north.I'll even strap Campbell Newman into my car for a hot lap to fire up his support if he comes long. There is some fear that the new government will axe funding for the event, but I think the north of the state is starved for this level of entertainment and it would be unfair for our fans to be deprived.The 150,000 fans expected over the three days of the event come from far and wide. There is also talk of maybe Cairns or Mackay getting the event, but I don't mind so long as it stays in north Queensland. The Townsville fans will certainly be in for some acton with former F1 champ Jacques Villeneuve driving Greg Murphy's car while he's injured. I grew up watching him race and it will be great to rub fenders with him again. He got used to the cars pretty quick when he raced at the Gold Coast event a couple of years ago, so he only needs to familiarise himself with this rather unique track. Townsville is more like the Melbourne Grand Prix circuit because it goes around a park, but it's a semi-permanent track that is a hybrid of circuit and streets designed by Mark Skaife.The biggest challenge for Jacques will be getting his head around how much kerb you can use in the corners. We have our cars pretty well set up for this circuit and pulled off a one-two there last year. I also had pole on the Sunday, so we're going into the round with some confidence. We also have some momentum behind us after Darwin where we halted the dominance of the Falcons.But we can't be too cocky. It's difficult to get momentum, but it can be pretty easy to lose it. Last year we did well because we were the only team to use the loophole they had where we could re-use our soft tyres from the previous race. The team took the gamble and was quite smart about that, but it will be a level playing field now with the other teams working out tyre wear on the circuit.Format wise, it's two 200km races with a shootout on the Saturday, a mix of hard and soft tyres like in Darwin and a minimum of two stops per race. The weather and the track conditions will be different to Darwin so we just have to make sure the car is good enough on the hard tyre. Hopefully it's nice and hot so FPR melt their tyres again, although I'm sure the teams will have done some research over the short break to get better soft tyre life. If we can qualify in the top five we will have a shot at winning and pegging back the points gap to the top three. 

After 15 years in the north we are still getting record crowds. That was the first place where V8 Supercars had government support and the result has been fantastic for the local economy, tourism and also for the infrastructure of that track. It's now a permanent world-class venue. And that record crowd of almost 50,000 - half the population of the city - was entertained by some of the best racing witnessed in some years. Earlier this season there were a few races that boiled down to economy runs, but even then we had some spectacular close finishes. And at better than the third-way mark we have one of the tightest battles for the championship among the top three - although I still think I'm in with a good chance in fourth. I'm just whittling away at those points each round. But most importantly the racing over the past few rounds has just got better and better. The cars are super-fast and reliable and there are heaps of teams with good prospects. From the front to the back of the grid there is usually only about 1.5 seconds in lap time differences. In my time in V8 Supercars I can't remember a better time in competition. You've got multiple teams winning races, but even the battles for the minor places are highly competitive. On track there are groups of cars fighting it out for every position. I found this out when I got shunted to the back of the field at Darwin and had to fight my way through. Everyone is trying 110 per cent no matter where they are in the field. I think the officials have just about perfected the race formula with the soft and hard tyre combinations. The soft tyres are giving us grip that means a difference in road speed that leads to lots of passing. Also the tyre degradation means the fast cars slow down and then others pass them. The race result isn't being set from who pits first and has the shortest pitstop. In some years past the only passing we ever saw was in pit lane. Now there is actual overtaking in these races. Something V8 Supercars should look at is having maybe two or more soft compound tyres. They could have a compound suitable for the cold tracks such as Tasmania and hotter places like Darwin and Townsville where they have a slightly harder soft tyre. That way the tyre degradation would remain similar. The only downside is the higher cost in developing those tyres, but it would stop some of the processional races where it's all about fuel economy. There is also an argument now about whether with the 18-inch wheel in the Car of the Future from next year we should have a super-soft tyre. Now that would make for excellent racing.  However, we don't want too much grip which can destroy race tracks.

I've had a lot of bad luck through the season.

The Order of Australia award is very flattering, but certainly comes as a surprise.I'm just glad it recognises our sport as well as my work with road safety and charities such as the RSPCA.I've been joking with people that they will now have to call me sir, but really it's not going to my head and I don't think I'll be adding the initials "OAM" to my name anytime soon.On the down side, it was sad to see our association with Vodafone coming to an end as it gave us a close association with the McLaren F1 team. I hope we can continue to foster good relations with them in the future.Our team principal Roland Dane doesn't seem too worried about finding a new major sponsor, even in these tough economic times. He's pretty confident, but he always plays his cards close to his chest so I don't know what he has in mind.I'm more focussed on this weekend's round in Darwin than worrying about our sponsorship deal. I had two podium results there last year so I'm going into this round with some confidence.We have the car set-up right, our qualifying is better this year because we are not having to over-drive the car to get good speed and I practiced a lot of race starts at the recent test day at Queensland Raceway, so I believe we're in better shape than we were this time last year.The Darwin track is very abrasive and the weather is hot, so it will chew up the soft tyres very quickly. That places a lot of emphasis on getting our tyre and pit strategy right. Last year we did a reverse strategy with teammate Jamie Whincup to try to avoid double stacking in the pits and I imagine we will do that again this year.In both races we finished ahead of Jamie with a third on the Saturday and we had the Sunday race in our grasp until a safety car came out and wiped out our 15-second lead over Shane van Gisbergen. He had the better life left in his tyres and was able to get away from us. That was just a matter of luck and you can't rule out that sort of thing from happening again.It doesn't take much for a safety car to come out at Darwin because as soon as you run off the track you tend to start a grass fire and they have to get the fire marshals to put it out. Hopefully they've cut and watered the grass.The Fords are going to be hard to beat as they go into this round with momentum behind them and some good results at Darwin last year. Not that our team hasn't been performing well, but the Holdens haven't been in the results this year mainly because HRT has failed to fire.Garth Tander has had some bad luck, but he's still a force to be reckoned with. However, James Courtney just hasn't fired since he's been with HRT. I think the main issue is that he is struggling to bond with his team.There is no doubt about his driving abilities, but the problem is he lives in one state and his team is based in another. I've tried that before and it just doesn't work. Part of our success is that we all live and work close together and have been able to forge strong team relationships. 

At the moment that top three doesn't include me. We are a third of the way through the season and I'm not starting to panic, but I do need one of the top three to have a DNF at some stage. Jamie (Whincup) and Will (Davison) have already had their DNF at Phillip Island in the last round, so it is not highly likely they will have another one. In particular, Jamie is the king of consistency. He hasn't won many races, but he's still within 10 points of the lead with his excellent consistency. On the other hand, Frosty (Mark Winterbottom) is overdue to have one, although he did limp home a distant 26th place in NZ with bent steering. Just about every driver has at least one DNF in a series. There are three teams that are showing exceptional car speed and consistency this year - FPR, SBR and us. Thankfully we have four rounds coming up that have been good to me in the past - Darwin next weekend, then Townsville, Ipswich and Eastern Creek in Sydney. I'm really happy to be returning to the Creek where I've had a lot of success over the years. It's also great to see they have spent so much money to revive a circuit to such a high standard. They've not only added the first new race circuits in Australia in a decade, but also upgraded pit facilities and almost doubled the spectator capacity. We need more top-quality circuits in Australia. Too many have been lost to urban encroachment. Eastern Creek now has great facilities for V8 Supercars, but also for other categories of racing, as well as corporate days and vital driver and rider training sessions. They also have a choice of tracks - the traditional "GP" 3.9km track, a short 2.8km circuit and a new, longer 4.5km track - allowing them to run more than one race meeting at the same time. We will be using the GP track which is the one we are used to. Our format will be reduced to just the two days with two 30-minute practice sessions, a qualifying session and 140km race on the Saturday and a practice session, qualifying and a longer 220km race on the Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the condensed program will work. While it will be frantic for the teams, it should be better for the fans with more activity packed into each day. We get to drive on a combination of hard and soft tyres in both races and I'm stoked as we were fastest in testing there on the soft tyre at the spectator day in February. The flip side to Eastern Creek being added instead of another overseas round is that CAMS and the teams didn't budget for an extra Aussie round. The extra Sydney round also swapped places with Winton which moves from August to November, so it won't be cold as usual which means all our data from previous years will be almost worthless. At least everyone is in the same boat. Hopefully by then I will have competed in my third Australasian Safari. I have been talking recently to Kees Weel about joining his team again. When I did the first event and won it two years ago people told me I would get hooked and they are right. It's a different event and a lot more relaxed and low key than V8s.  

Mark bought my '93 Van Diemen FF1600 for the Formula Ford series and finished about fourth before disappearing over to Europe. I followed him overseas in 1997 but with the limited opportunities and backing I had, I really couldn't do any more. Still, I have no regrets and am just happy to now see an Aussie winning GP races. And what a win it was! The Monaco track is all about driver talent. It's won in qualifying because you have to be on the front row to have any chance as it's a difficult circuit to pass on. But getting that fast qualifying lap takes a lot of bravery and skill. I think Mark is a lot more focussed this year because they don't have the car speed and he has to be more determined to give it a go. He's already out-qualified his teammate Sebastian Vettel more times than last year. Let's hope this is his year. Meanwhile, back here in Australia we're one-third of the way through the season with a few weeks' break before we hit the track at Darwin. We tested at Queensland Raceway this week and had my endurance race co-driver, Warren Luffy, on hand to do some all-important laps. He's just back from the Nurburgring 24-hour race so it was great to catch up and find out all about it. It's an event I would love to do next year if it doesn't clash with the V8s. However, I have yet to classify for the event and will need to stitch together a deal with Audi to go over and do a shorter event first. We tried last year but unfortunately crashed out and didn't qualify. At testing this week it was important to get Luffy's input on the car and, like we did with Skaifey, get him used to working with our race engineer, Jeromy (CORRECT) Moore, and building some team morale. One of the key elements in testing for me was starts after a couple of dud starts this year, especially blowing my pole position at Phillip Island. So I did a lot of race-start simulations as it's our weakest link at the moment. We also tried some new things with the suspension but there have been no mechanical issues for us this year, so there wasn't much to test in that regard. It's been difficult trying to continue to develop the current car while also focussing on the Car of the Future (COTF). Our first COTF chassis is probably 75 per cent done and on target for the first permitted test on August 8. I can't wait.  The earlier the better. I've been following the chassis build and everything is going to plan, but I won't get involved until we get further down the track and focus on the steering column and seat, then start track testing. I don't know how FPR can be thinking about having four cars next year with COTF. They have three cars now and I think some of the issues they had with Reynolds in the pits showed that it would be better to have two complete pit bays rather than three cars in one. It will take a lot more infrastructure to accommodate them and FPR has the facilities, but I just don't know if they need the extra pressure of four new COTF chassis, plus the added extras such as at least two spare cars. It's a bit of a stretch. I don't think we will go to four cars. Our Banyo workshops wouldn't accommodate four cars, but the collective data would be twice as good.  

What with copping a drive-through penalty, stuffing up a start and double stacking in the pits, I'm quite surprised I've come away from the Phillip Island round having closed the gap on the front runners in the championship. That wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Jamie (Whincup) and Will (Davison) crashing out of Saturday's race. Despite the points gain it was still a disappointing weekend for me because we were capable of so much more. In qualifying on Saturday Jamie and I were sitting first and second until the last 90 seconds when we got shuffled back by Fords to seventh and eighth. We were happy with our car speed and our progress through the race until I ran into the back of Jason Bright and copped the drive-through penalty. I admit it was my mistake as I misjudged the braking zone and I know Jason realises I didn't mean to do it. Unfortunately it punted Jason off the track and the stewards had to give me a drive-through penalty. What annoys me is that there seems to have been a fair bit of inconsistency in the penalties handed out over the weekend where there was a lot of biff and barge, much of which was intentional not accidental like mine. We redeemed ourselves on Sunday with pole position only to unravel all the good work right at the start. Fans might not realise just how difficult it is to launch these cars off the line. Getting the right revs and operating the line locker (handbrake) are the easy parts; it's getting the feel for the clutch and how much load to give it that is difficult. You can either load the clutch too much and stall or break into wheelspin, or like I did, you don't load the clutch enough and get clutch slip and no initial launch. The difference between the two is very marginal. It's something that is now on my agenda to work on. The bad start shuffled me out of the top 10, but we had good speed and the car was looking after the tyres well so we managed to work our way up to sixth very quickly. Then the safety car came out about lap eight which was way too early and everyone headed for the pits. Because Jamie was in front of us, we had to double stack while he got new tyres and a fuel top-up. The wait cost me at least a dozen places. It was the same for other drivers with two cars in their team. I don't know where we came out in the field - probably as far back as 20th - but I just put my head down and gave it absolutely everything I had. The car was really well set up. It was fast, it looked after the tyres and did everything I wanted and needed it to do. Unfortunately we ran out of laps. A couple more and we could have caught Will and scored the win. That would have made me equal with Skaifey on wins at the Island. You could say it's the one that got away from us, yet for me it was still a satisfying race. We gave it our best shot and in the end I'm delighted with the result. We now have a month's break before the next round in Darwin, but we won't be sitting around doing nothing. It's one of those parts of the year where we don't do a lot of racing but we do have a test day and a couple of ride days so we will still be doing a fair bit of driving. And I'll definitely be working on those starts.