Articles by Craig Lowndes

But the Commodores will stage a big comeback this weekend at Phillip Island. The Commodore has better high-speed stability at the rear than the Falcon and that is vital on such a fast-flowing circuit.  Plus, you can largely forget about results so far this year and wipe the slate clean this weekend. For the first time since 2009, we are doing two sprint races at the island, not enduros, so much of the car set-up from previous years will be irrelevant. Being a sprint format we have to work the tyres much harder and get the car to steer quite sharp instead of looking after the tyres. We are also racing on hard tyres only this weekend so there won't be any of the soft tyre strategies of the past few races.This track is tough on tyres due to its high-speed nature. There is a lot of load generated on the rubber through the corners, especially the front right. But the hard tyres still generate very good grip around this circuit because we can get a lot of temperature into them. There are a couple of variables we will be looking at this weekend which play a big influence on races at Phillip Island. One is the changeable weather and the other is the wind. In several places on the track you can be facing into gusty wind that can completely upset the balance of your car. They are the approach to Honda corner, up past the Hayshed and coming on to the main straight. If you get a big gust of wind it can lift the front of the car and move it around. It is one of the few tracks we have a problem with the wind. The Superbikes again share the bill with us this weekend and they really suffer from being blown around by the wind. They sometimes drill holes in the bike fairing to counter the wind, but of course we can't do that. I have a bit of a secret weapon in my good mate Josh Waters who is leading the Superbike championship for Suzuki. He will be able to give me reports about the changing weather, track surface and, of course, wind direction. Phillip Island is a circuit all racers find exciting. We hit about 284km/h on the main straight and go into turn one at 200km/h. You have to hold your nerve as you hold it flat through the challenging Hayshed section and it's a really fast entry to the main straight. There are also some great elevation changes and a couple of slow corners thrown in to mix it up. I don't see it as a dangerous track, but certainly challenging. I can only imagine how exciting it is for the bike riders who nudge 300km/h on the main straight and have to contend with those wind gusts on those lightweight bikes. Phillip Island has been kind to me over the years. I hold the qualifying and race lap records and have the most pole positions. However, I'm second in the number of wins with eight, just one behind my old mate Skaifey. I have the chance to match and then go past his race record, but as attractive as it would be to knock Skaifey off the top, that won't be what I'll be focusing on. Of course you always go out to win, but it's not the record books I'm after. It's a championship that I want.  

Their mistake certainly spoiled my 450th race start celebrations on Sunday. Our team principal, Roland Dane, said it must have been Stevie Wonder who gave the safety car the wrong directions in the final race in Perth at the weekend.Anyone could see that it was Jamie (Whincup) who was leading the race and not me. If teams or drivers stuff up we get penalised, but if race control makes a fundamental error there is no penalty. They should probably give us a negative 25 point penalty for the damage they caused to our championship, although that is never going to happen. Needless to say I am pretty disappointed. In fact, gutted.I'll feel even worse if the championship comes down to 20-odd points at the end of the season. I don't know what you can do. Ideally when those blokes are useless they should be replaced. I'd hate to have that position. It's a big commitment and responsibility but when you make a fundamental error, something needs to be done. The problem was that safety car driver Amber Anderson was told to pick up the "Triple 8 car", so she did what she was told. It wasn't her fault.But telling her to pick up the Triple 8 car is like saying pick up the FPR car, or the HRT car. Which one? So our car and a few others were stuck at 80km/h behind the safety car while everyone else was at race pace around the track and going into the pits. I wasn't sure what was happening at the time, so I just had to follow orders. Race control didn't realise their mistake until just after turn 6, the second last corner, when they let us past.By then about a dozen cars had raced away and gone through the pits, jumping the queue and shuffling us back to 15th. We had been running fourth and with a quick pit stop we were looking good to press for the lead. In fairness what they could have done is red flag the race and put the order back to what it was before everyone pitted. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often, but in the past they've tried to reshuffle back to the correct order while the safety car is still out there.If there is a dangerous situation on the track, they are allowed to bring out the safety car and pick up any car, then slow everyone down until they figure out the order and let the pack reform. This situation may have been a bit more difficult, because they had people pitting at the time, but by not doing anything about it, they have not only dudded several drivers, but also the fans who want to see a real race, not some fabricated result. In the end, I salvaged points with a third and two sixths and remain at fourth in the championship so it's not all bad, although we have now lost touch with the top three and that will make my championship all the more difficult.The championship is certainly developing into a Holden versus Ford battle which is good for the fans. FPR have picked up their game this year and shown they are serious contenders with consistent speed and good race strategies. And how about that last lap on Sunday? That's the second event in a row where we've had thrilling racing right to the finish line. Despite the safety car debacle, the fans should be really satisfied with the quality of racing this year.It was disappointing for Jamie to be going for a race win and end up third, but that is one of the most difficult positions to be in where you are trying to pass while also having to defend a position. Once again we have another quick fortnight turn-around between far-flung events. We had to get the vehicles back quickly from Perth, turn them around in three days and then ship them off again for the next round next weekend (MAY 18-20) in Phillip Island where our team plans to avenge the injustices of last weekend. 

I didn't know until I was told. It's amazing how fast the time has gone. These days it's easier to rack up the races as there are more rounds now.The biggest change over the years hasn't been in the technology, but the fitness of the drivers. That's led to longevity in the sport that you don't get in other sports like footy.People used to think racing wasn't physical and that we just sat on our backsides, but these days you have to be fit to do as many races as we do in often hot conditions and with punishing G forces.I've had to put in a huge effort at fitness in the past few years to keep up with the younger drivers. As you get older you have to work harder to keep your fitness up.That level of fitness is also filtering through the whole team. For example my race engineer, Jeromy Moore, is a dedicated and super-fit mountain bike rider like Mark Webber.He needs to be fit to retain a high level of concentration throughout a round and this weekend will place extra stress levels on us all with three qualifying sessions, one for each of the races.Qualifying is a problem at Barbagallo because each lap is under a minute and it's difficult to find clear space for a good run.This circuit is also hard on tyres because the sand that blows across the track acts like sandpaper on the rubber. That means we will be changing tyres more often than we need to fill the tank, so this won't develop into an economy run like the past couple of rounds.It will be interesting racing because we have to use hard and soft tyres in each race. Last time we switched to soft tyres early, but we got swallowed up because the track chewed the tyres quickly and we lost pace.Each driver will have to manage their tyre wear carefully and teams will employ a lot of different strategies about when they pit for new rubber. It should be a fantastic round with teams battling right up to the chequered flag. 

I had promised a traditional Maori celebration dance if I scored my first victory on New Zealand soil, but things didn't go according to plan. However, the weekend wasn't a total loss. Two fourth places seems like a fairly average weekend, but they are good points and there are still 33 races to go in the season. More important than scoring a podium was the fact that I've gone from eighth in the standings to fourth. As we saw last year we just need to take maximum points when we can from each round, not go for a win-it-or-bin-it attitude. If we continue to do that this season we should be in good shape at the end of the season. We haven't traditionally done well around Hamilton's streets apart from one wet race, so I'm happy enough to take away two fourth places. We still did better in the points than Frosty (Mark Winterbottom) even though he won Sunday's race. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's points that win championships not race wins. We started the weekend well with good qualifying pace, but then we problems with the balance between the front and rear tyres on the hot track in the top 10 shootout. It takes time to get the tyres up to temp and they just weren't right. I missed a couple of turns and knew I'd blown a chance at pole so I started drifting the car before my race engineer, Jeromy Moore, reminded me over the radio that we had to use those tyres in the race. We qualified eighth, had a poor start and pitted early to avoid double-stacking in pit lane with teammate Jamie Whincup.That got us on to the soft tyres early, but we then had to conserve fuel to make sure we could finish the race with just one more pit stop. As it turned out a safety car took away the fuel economy problem so we could get back to racing. At the end I was putting pressure on Garth Tander for third and could have scored a podium with a few more laps, but I was pretty happy with fourth considering our grid position. We qualified in fourth on Sunday and I finally got a really good start, but by lap three we encountered a brake problem that I had to nurse all the way through the race. We use water to cool the brakes and the system failed which is a fair old handicap around a street circuit where the brakes get a lot of punishment. It was just a 20c piece that failed, but that's racing. I suppose it was also a 20c part that caused the satellite blackout in the TV coverage just before the last two laps. I hear the coverage came back with Frosty doing victory donuts and they had to replay those final laps.  What a shame; it was a thrilling finish to our racing chapter in Hamilton. As I've said before, we must have a round in New Zealand, but the future of a Kiwi race still seems to be up in the air. Pukekohe is the fave, but it needs a lot of work to improve run-off for safety reasons and money is a contentious issue. The other option is Hampton Downs which also requires money to lengthen the track. The good news is that we are returning to Eastern Creek in August. I love that track and have had some success there. I won my first event for Triple 8 there in 2005 and the last time we were at the Creek was in 2011 for a test day where we were the fastest, so I'm certainly looking forward to that round.  

I've got a sense I might finally break through for a win in New Zealand this weekend.In all the years I've been racing over here I've never won in a V8. I've had my successes in other classes, just not yet in V8s. There's no one reason why I haven't stood on the top step of the kiwi podium.I've had my share of bad luck and mechanical problems in Hamilton, but we've been fast here and scored a second place last year, so there's definitely a strong chance to go one further. Before that, Greg Murphy just froze everyone out with his dominance at the Pukekohe race circuit. If I win this weekend, I'll probably do the haka on top of the car.Despite being in eighth place in the championship and never winning here, I note that I'm rated second in the betting for the weekend behind my teammate Jamie Whincup ($3.25) and alongside Frosty (Mark Winterbottom) and Will Davison ($5.50). It's great to be back up the top of the betting and to be rated with those guys.We finished last season strong and this year started off well - not great - but we had some bad luck in Tassie just when we were about to strike for a win. There's certainly room for improvement.We haven't got any plans to make substantial changes to the car after the Tassie round. Besides, the car was very quick and nice to drive here last year. We have our heads around the car set-up, but we'll obviously have a good look at the track and the weather and make some minor adjustments. The forecast is for cool and dry conditions so grip should be high and lap times fast.I think the secret here and on any street circuit is to have confidence in your car - and I certainly do. The corners are blind and there are a lot of concrete walls so you also have to be committed and have confidence in yourself.Jamie is certainly the one to beat this weekend having won four times before at Hamilton. It's the nature of the track that he enjoys. He loves the challenge and always excels on street circuits. The only way we can beat Jamie is to out-qualify him and get a good grid position which is vital in a place like this.Others to watch are Garth Tander who is always strong here and the locals, especially Shane van Gisbergen who broke through for his inaugural win last year. The Kelly brothers also went very well here last year and are performing strongly this season.The race format this weekend is two 200km races with a shootout on Saturday and two 20-minute qualifying sessions on Sunday. Last year we had all soft tyres, but this year we have a mix of soft and hard in each race like we did in Tassie.The strategy will therefore be the same as at Symmons Plains - get out in front, pit early and make it to the end without running out of fuel. We'll start on hard tyres and try to get on the softs earlier than the others.Hamilton is a similar circuit to Adelaide with a lot of bitumen surface changes and a high attrition rate - especially in the back chicane which has proven to break cars. So brace yourself for a fair bit of carnage and excitement this weekend. And watch out for my victory haka. 

We look ahead, because that’s where the car is pointed and that’s where first position is. So I’m not looking back at the last round and the DNF against my name in Tassie. It’s a long season and we’re only coming up to the third round, so I’m not too concerned about sliding down to eighth position. Besides, everyone has at least one bad round. It’s just that I’ve already had mine so I can’t afford to have any more. We just have to get back to what we do well and make the best of every race and round and make it winner. So I’m looking ahead to next weekend in New Zealand. This is the last time we will race on the streets of Hamilton because their contract has expired, which is a bit of a shame. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we absolutely must race in New Zealand. We have a huge fan base there and a lot of crew and drivers who are Kiwis. But Hamilton just didn’t draw big enough crowds to make it viable. There is talk that we could go back to Pukekhoe which is a great track with a fast back straight, tight hairpin and a lovely flowing section past the pits. If it was available I wouldn’t be too disappointed in returning there. Another possibility is the Hampton Downs circuit near Auckland which has some good elevation changes. It’s short, but no shorter than Perth or Symmons Plains. I don’t have a preference for the South Island or North Island, but if we go to a street circuit, it really needs to be either Auckland or Wellington in the North Island as they have larger population bases and more tourism. Growing up as a kid, I always enjoyed watching the touring cars race at Wellington. I’ve never had a chance to race there, but I would certainly put my hand up for it. I have always supported races at tracks because they provide permanent infrastructure that can be used all year round, but I do enjoy street circuits. They are a huge challenge, a great spectacle and they place a lot of emphasis on the driver to make a difference Drivers have to be a lot braver on street circuits with concrete walls on either side, especially in the rain.  And, if you forget about the electrical gremlins that spoilt my Gold Coast party last year, we actually did pretty well on the streets last year.  

The walk from a crashed car back to the pits is one of the longest a race driver can do. My walk wasn't that far from the hairpin to the pits last Sunday, but it seemed like an eternity. To be honest, I was bitterly disappointed when I got out of the car. But by the time I got back to the crew and collected my thoughts, I was able to put on a brave face and a smile for the cameras, even though it was still hurting inside. When you have a race-ending accident and you know that you were going to have a tough day you chalk it down as one of those things. But when you have an accident that puts you out of a race where you had every chance of winning with a strong car, it is absolutely gut-wrenching. We had pole and we had a car that was very good on the soft tyres for both speed and long-distance wear, so things were looking really positive. I was putting pressure on Will Davison who was starting to show signs of struggling. I'm not sure if it was tyres or brakes, but he was having issues. Meanwhile, Frosty (Mark Winterbottom) was putting pressure on us, so I had to keep forging ahead and try to put the pass on Will. That's when I made contact with his car and it broke the front left wheel off my car and ended my race. I don't know who was to blame. I suppose it's 50-50. It is a difficult and tight hairpin corner. The road doesn't go straight, it bends around slightly. We specifically spoke about it in the drivers' briefing and we try to give each other racing room. Will was racing for the corner and I was hard up against the shoulder with nowhere to go. I don't think Will did it intentionally. It's just the nature of that corner. The stewards have deemed it a racing incident, so we just need to get on with life. I don't think Will deserves a penalty. At the time you are probably hoping for one, but you take a step back and look at it and put it down as a racing incident. It's a totally different incident to the one at Adelaide with Todd Kelly where I turned him around and copped a 25-point penalty. That was probably another 50-50 incident and we argued we should have had more racing room, but I've put it down to bad luck and moved on. Will came and saw me after the race and wasn't sure who was to blame but he apologised for the incident That was nice of him. That's something I've always tried to do; clear the air straight away. We don't want long-term problems with other drivers. We also spoke again the next day and it was a lot easier to talk then. We are going to be racing against each other for some time, so we need to be on good terms. You have to put everything into perspective: it's a long season, I still get the opportunity to do something I love - drive race cars - and no one was hurt, so it wasn't all bad. The positive out of the weekend is that although we struggled for speed on Saturday, we rectified it for Sunday. The temperature and wind conditions were different and more in our favour and we came up with a better set-up with a new rear spring. It was just a subtle change, but it worked. I also changed my line in a couple of corners which changed our overall speed. It's a track that's under a minute around, so a 10th of a second can mean two grid positions. Now that have I the bad luck out of the way, bring on New Zealand in two weeks.  

Because the Tasmania round this weekend will be a whole new ballgame. For the past few years we've raced later in the season at Symmons Plains when the weather has been much colder and wetter. This time the weather will be hotter and drier, so it means much of the technical information and car set-ups we've accumulated in the past few years will be totally useless to us this weekend. Jamie was successful there last year and I had a win the previous year, but potentially our car set-ups from previous years just won't work. We will be using hard and soft tyres again and with increased track temperatures, teams will have to adjust their suspension settings, their pit strategies and the way they use the tyres. We discovered at last week's Australian Grand Prix round how to extract a bit more life our of the soft tyre, so that's something we will take to this round. Because it's a short sub-minute track, qualifying is of paramount importance. You simply have to be up the front of the grid to avoid the carnage into the first hairpin. Then it's a matter of having a good race and pit strategy to avoid going a lap down which is so easy to do here. Qualifying is also very difficult on this short circuit because there is so much traffic and it's hard to find a bit of space to get a fast, clean lap and use your tyres when they are at their best. After the crash in qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix between Greg Murphy and Jonathon Webb, the officials have said they will be watching carefully to ensure there is no balking or incidents. Greg was on a fast out lap and came on to the last corner just as Webb was held up by other traffic and they had a nose-to-tail accident. There were no penalties handed out as it wasn't Webby's fault. He was more the middle man being held up by banked-up traffic in front of him. Anyway, it's good to know the officials will be looking for these types of incidents. If we can qualify in the first couple of rows, our strategy will be to get clear and pit early which is what 90 per cent of the teams did at the GP. Obviously our strategy will depend on the weather pattern, but you can bet on us starting on hard tyres and pitting early to bolt on the soft tyres. Then we will try to extract as much life as we can from them. Last year we found we could go further on this track on soft tyres than we thought. But it was cooler then and the tyres may not last as long in the hotter conditions. Last week I mentioned how important history is in this sport. In that regard, I'm looking forward to driving a 1953 Holden FX in next January's Monte Carlo Historic Rally. It will celebrate 60 years since Holden's first international race.

Last year a few critics complained that TeamVodafone dominated and it was a two-horse race between my teammate Jamie Whincup and myself. But going by the first two rounds in Adelaide and Melbourne, it will definitely not be a two-horse race this time.I still think we are the team to beat, but the Holdens won't have it all their own way this year with the Falcons of FPR and Stone Brothers really starting to show good speed.There is a big possibility there are going to be three or four teams bidding for the championship, but it will really depend on professionalism, consistency and reliability throughout the year not just starring in a couple of rounds.For the fans, it's definitely a promising start to the season with about six cars vying for the championship. It's only early stages yet, but the way it is shaping up it is going to be a very tough season for us and we'll have to make sure we do all the little things right all the time.The Australian Grand Prix weekend was disappointing for Jamie and me, but it wasn't a total disaster. Certainly it wasn't the result we were looking for in front of our sponsors. However, there are a few positives we can take away from the weekend.The first is that we now have two reasonably straight cars to take to Tassie next weekend. The cars are on the transporter back to Brisbane where we will have only a little bit of work to do on them before turning them around and sending them off across Bass Strait.Jamie's car needs a bit of TLC on the passenger's door after Saturday's accident, but that's about it. Another positive we can take from the weekend is that when we weren't having engine or brake troubles, we showed pretty good speed.With our engine problems in the first race and the way each race determined the grid position for the next race, we were shuffled back in the pack with little hope of winning, so we turned our focus on testing.Because it wasn't a championship points round and we get so few test days during the year, we had a good opportunity to trial a few things such as suspension settings. We've also come away with some useful data on soft tyre degradation.It was the first time we have used the soft tyre this year and we learnt that if you are a bit kinder to the tyre when you first leave the pits, you can get more out of it. I'm not sure whether it cures, but it definitely lasts a lot longer with a three-quarter pace at the start, rather than trying to get 100 per cent out of it from the first lap.That info will be important when we go to Tasmania next week. One thing my mentor Peter Brock taught me is to respect the history of our sport. So it's pleasing to me to see my old Betta Electrical Ford Falcon getting some TLC in our Brisbane workshops.It's chassis number 10 and the first car I drove after joining the team in 2005. It's also the car Jamie and I drove to the first of our trifecta of wins at Bathurst from 2006. The car also has great sentimental value to our team boss, Roland Dane, and I believe he is rebuilding it with a plan to take it to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK in June.I'd love to go to Goodwood and have a look at the classic cars, but to also drive the Betta car again would be fantastic. As we are starting to build the new race cars for next year's series, it's interesting to look back at the old Falcon and see how far we've come.It still has the H-pattern gearbox and obviously everything was first class, but to see the development and progression since then is amazing.

It's never been a championship round before because we could never be guaranteed enough track time. But this year we have a championship round at Abu Dhabi where we compete alongside the F1s, so why not in Melbourne? Abu Dhabi has fewer support categories and more time available for us. However, I wouldn't like to see organisers cut down too much on the support categories in Melbourne, as it gives the fans more entertainment variety and provides those categories with some profile. But we've supported the F1 in Melbourne since 1996 and I believe a lot fans come along specifically to see the V8s and would like to see us competing for points, not just in exhibition races. That's not to say the racers don't take this round seriously. You can tell from the hard racing and crashing that everyone is having a red-hot go. Our team treat it very seriously because of our connection with Vodafone and the F1 McLaren team, so all the big bosses are out here to see us perform at our best. The F1 round also presents a great opportunity for us to experiment with some left-field set-ups that we wouldn't normally do. If you do get it wrong, at least you're not hurting your championship. In the past, the difficulty with having Melbourne as a championship round has been that we can't get enough practice time and qualifying time. This year the format is substantially different with fewer practice and qualifying sessions but more races. In the end, it works out to a similar amount of track time. We start with two practice sessions and a qualifying session on Thursday which sets the order for an eight-lap qualifying race on Friday. It's an interesting format where we drop off the last three cars after lap three right through to the end of the race where it's basically the top 10 cars left to thrash out the last lap. It's very similar to some supercross race formats and it should be very exciting. I'm pretty sure it will mean there will be a lot of racing and jostling for position not just up front, but right down the back with drivers desperate to escape an early cut from the pack. The race doesn't count toward the overall points for the weekend and, of course, the weekend doesn't count toward the championship, but it's a good experiment to see if it develops thrilling racing. If it does, then it should be considered for future events. I suppose that's one of the advantages of this round because the organisers can experiment with race formats to get a feel and sense for whether it works and see the reaction of the drivers and fans. How we finish in that qualifying race will determine the starting order for the second race on Friday which also establishes the starting order for the third race on Saturday. Grid positions for Sunday's final race are determined by the points accumulated in Friday's and Saturday's races. It sounds confusing - I'm a bit confused myself - but it should help build excitement throughout the weekend and give us something to race for. The Albert Park circuit has been a pretty happy hunting ground for me with pole and round wins in 1999 and 2009 and about six race wins all up. It's not really wasted effort because it gives you a lot of confidence going into the next round knowing you have good car speed.