Articles by Craig Lowndes

I'm a long way off retiring, but it's a question on people's lips now that I've signed up for three more years with TeamVodafone. My contract was to expire at the end of this year but the extra three years means I'll be over 40 when it expires and I will definitely be considering life after V8 Supercars at that stage. All I can say at this point is that I will not continue if I'm circulating at the back of the pack - that's not just for my own pride but also for the sake of the team and my sponsors.  I would have to still be in a position to win races to continue. If not, then I'd have a realistic look at my performance and my enthusiasm for motorsport. If I find I'm not excited about being inside a race car, then I'll call it quits. There are a few of us in the same situation in the V8 paddock, such as Russell Ingall, Greg Murphy and Jason Bright. I don't think any of them have passed their use-by date. They all still have great talent and ability. I hope my performance at the weekend with pole plus fourth and fifth places shows I still have a few good years in me yet. Cracking my first Clipsal pole was a highlight and we definitely had good car speed all weekend. However, the flat tyre on Saturday and the economy run on Sunday prevented me from turning that speed into victory. I can understand if the fans were a bit bored, frustrated and ultimately disappointed with Sunday's race which basically turned into a fuel economy run. We couldn't use our car speed because we were driving to a fuel number, not a lap time. That was incredibly frustrating for us as drivers, so I can just imagine how frustrating it was for the fans. It all goes back to Saturday where fuel consumption played a big part in the race. Teams spent Saturday night working out strategies to conserve fuel, based on at least one safety car period. The problem was that for only the third time in Clipsal history there was no safety car, so that threw strategies right out the window.  I suspect the fans were bored. It was pretty boring in the driver's seat, too, as there was no flat-out racing in the cars around me. Instead, it was a case of who could be the fastest with the least amount of fuel. My starts were not too flash and that's something I'll have to work on. On Saturday I didn't load up the clutch enough and had too much clutch slip while on Sunday I loaded it too much and had too much wheelspin so I had to dip the clutch a little. They weren't bad starts, but they weren't as good as Garth Tander and Will Davison who were all over me. I was going well on Saturday until I picked up some debris on turn eight from all the crashes and it pierced my rear left tyre. I thought the Watt's linkage was broken and I was lucky to make it back into the pits. I emerged in 22nd place and had a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully I had enough fuel to be able to race to the finish line while some of the cars around me were worried about fuel economy. Unfortunately I lost 25 points for tagging Todd Kelly's car in the second last lap. I tried to pass into turn nine and didn't quite have the overlap I needed and my front left hit his rear right unfortunately turning him around. I stopped on the track to re-address the situation and avoid the penalty, but with the positioning of his car it wasn't possible. In the past, an offence like this would incur a drive-through or cash penalty, but now the stewards issue points penalties. I've never copped a 25-point penalty before and hopefully it's the last. While the car had enough speed to finish better than fourth and fifth, it was still my best Clipsal result and best season start for a few years. Now I just have to keep the momentum going.

It's good to have some security, however I'm not really sure how long the agreements go for. All I know is it's "multi years". At least Holden has committed to more seasons in our sport which is important as the agreement was set to run out at the end of this year. I'm happy to be driving Holdens, but I'd be happy to drive anything so long as it's with this team. This is the team that I enjoy racing with. They provide fantastic vehicles and we've had great results. The Holden agreement has lifted a bit of a weight off our shoulders as we head into the season opener at Adelaide. This is where the season really should start, not in the Mid East as it has the past couple of years. I've done every single event here and there only four of us who have done that - Garth Tander, Russell Ingall and Greg Murphy are the others. I won the first event and three others - two in Fords and two in Holdens - but I've never claimed a win for this team. Hopefully I can start the year off well and change that record. This is a circuit that demands respect. Street circuits are like that with their unforgiving surfaces, small run-off areas and forbidding concrete walls. There is simply no margin for error here. This event often seems to throw up the extra challenge of wet or really hot weather. Thankfully this year the conditions look like being perfect with no rain predicted and temperatures in the low 20s. That should lead to some record qualifying and race laps. While the mild weather might reduce the physical challenge of the weekend, it is still the hardest race of the year. There are 78 laps or 250km on Saturday and if you make a mistake and put it in the wall you could be out for the Sunday where you back up for another 78 laps. Racing around the streets of Adelaide is not just a physical challenge, but also a mental challenge to get things right 100 per cent of the time. About 90 per cent of the corners are blind so you can't see around them or through them and you need to have lightning fast reactions for the whole of the weekend. You also have to get good balance in the car set-up so it flows through the circuit, especially turn eight where you are travelling at 240km/h corner. It's pretty hair-raising if the car isn't behaving. Get it wrong and that corner can bite really hard. I'm confident our car will be fine on this circuit after our initial testing at Sandown earlier this month where we were second fastest. The team has finessed the car with minor adjustments - nothing major - and hopefully we can carry the momentum and car speed from last year through to this year. Look out for Tander who has a good record here, plus FPR and Stone Brothers who have very strong vehicles on street circuits. But I think my stiffest competition will come from the other side of our garage. Jamie Whincup loves street circuits and his concentration will not be shaken by the sad loss of his father, David, on Sunday. We've spoken about it and he's obviously upset, but he's taking it well and is very appreciative of the well-wishes of fans and the respect shown for him and his family. He's very focussed on what he has to do this weekend and this won't upset his preparation. He's mentally strong and understands the situation and will switch his brain on when he needs to. I was a bit disappointed with not getting a result in the Bathurst 12-Hour last weekend. The Audi R8 was a much nicer car to drive this year because it shed a couple of kilos, had extra aero at the front, was better balanced and had a little more horsepower. However, the German team owner said he was very happy with us and would love to put Warren Luff and me in a car anytime we are over his side of the world. It was great to spend some time with Luffy on the circuit where he will be my co-driver later this year. I think the weekend cemented that it's the right decision to go with him as my partner for the endurance events.

It's a great fit for Nissan to return to racing in the premier motorsport category in Australia after its years of dominance in the early 1990s with Godzilla. But I really think we need to get brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes involved.  They have a tremendous racing heritage and it would give out sport a lot of international credibility. I'll be racing in an Audi R8 this weekend in the 12-hour at Bathurst and I hope that encourages some other manufacturers to come out here to at least have a look at V8 Supercars.  Now that Nissan has announced it will rejoin the series in 2013 when the Car of the Future (COTF) race cars hit the track, everyone wants to know what will be the next manufacturer to sign up.  There has been a lot of talk about Chrysler and hopefully Toyota which would be great, but I really want to see those German manufacturers involved. I've been racing with Audi these past couple of years and they have shown a lot of enthusiasm for motorsport in our country.  No matter which manufacturers sign up, our fans can rest assured that the COTF project means the cars will be front-engined V8s with rear-wheel drive and a four-door saloon body shape. For the first time in my career I'm not contracted to any one car company.  I'm happy to be racing a Holden again after several years in a Ford, but I would have no hesitation in driving another manufacturer's car, just so long as that's what TeamVodafone principal Roland Dane wanted.  Meanwhile, my concentration is on the Bathurst 12-hour race this weekend. It would be great to carry my momentum through from last year's V8 season to this race and then continue on to the tough Clipsal round in Adelaide the following weekend. Once again, I'll be driving the R8 with Mark Eddy and Warren Luff who has been announced as my endurance partner for this year.  This weekend's race gives Warren and me an extra opportunity to get some race time together. The R8 is a fantastic car and the seat time around Bathurst will be very helpful to us both, but it's actually quite a different car to drive from the Commodore. It's about two seconds slower on the straights but it's about two seconds faster across the top, so the lap times are similar.  But that is where the similarity stops. We even sit on the wrong side of the car to drive. This is my first race for 2012 so I want to start on a high. My theme for this year is to "go one better'' after coming second twice at Bathurst last year and ending up the bridesmaid in the driver's championship.  I also hope this year to branch out into some more racing. Who knows, you might even see me racing a motorcycle. Last year I jokingly asked Roland if he would mind me competing in the eight-hour superbike race at Phillip Island.  He was a bit negative on that because it clashed with the V8 series. If it didn't, I'd certainly like to have a go, but that will be a long shot. I'd also like do the Australasian Safari again if we can find the budget.  And I'm currently in the throes of talking with Audi about more Nurburg-style endurance racing in Europe, so I certainly have a lot on my plate for this year.

We gave it everything right up to the bitter end when it became mathematically impossible to win the championship. I'm proud to say we went down fighting and I absolutely drove the wheels off that car. In the end, we had a fantastic year, but my teammate, Jamie Whincup, had an exceptional year and thoroughly deserved the title. He drove magnificently all season. I thought I'd thrown away any chance of the title on Saturday when I hit the wall in turn one on the top 10 shoot out and then spun at turn 10. But I just put my head down and drove as hard as I've ever driven and we got the result we wanted, taking maximum points. There was literally nothing left in the tank at the end - my tank or the car's. The last few laps were a fuel economy run, but I don't think anyone thought it was boring. I believe Neil Crompton and Mark Skaife did a great job of explaining to viewers what was happening and that made it even more exciting. We approached Sunday's race in the same way as Saturday - nothing to lose so just throw everything into it. So I was scraping as many walls as I could without damaging the car to get as much speed out of the circuit as I could. It was only in the last couple of laps that my race engineer Jeromy Moore told me Jamie's position and I knew the championship was his. Our team principal Roland Dane was pretty happy with the team result and we were all delighted with the outcome. Things had been pretty tense on both sides of the garage and we had two crash bays ready to go in case we needed them, so it was also a huge relief in our pit garage when the weekend and season were finally over. We will now sit down and analyse the season and work out what we could do to make next year better, but there will be no regrets or recriminations. Rounds I'd like to do again would be the Gold Coast and new Zealand, but overall I'm happy with my finishing rate which was a lot higher than I'd ever had and we improved our consistency in the first half of year which was another goal achieved. Now I have to work on my qualifying which has been very patchy this year with my worst effort ever at Sandown. Apart from the V8s next year I hope to have another go at the Australasian Safari in the new Holden Colorado and do a few endurance events with Audi at the Bathurst 12 hour in February and the 24-hour events at Nurburgring and Spa. Our awards night on the Monday held a nice surprise and an honour for me with my third Barry Sheene medal which is essentially our Brownlow Medal.  Now I'd like to hand out a few medals of my own. Best race was winning our third endurance victory on the trot at Phillip Island. It was significant because it's quite likely Skaifey's last. Best event was Bathurst. Even though we finished second, it was a thrilling and close finish with Garth Tander. Best team was TeamVodafone. We have proven not only that we are fast but also reliable. There is a lot of pride from all the team members which can be seen in the immaculate condition that our cars roll out of the transporter at each race meeting. Best driver is undoubtedly Jamie. He is the complete package with great qualifying, racing and consistency. Best circuit is Abu Dhabi. Some Australian circuits need work for next year, but nothing compares to the desert track. Best young gun is James Moffat who did well in several events and has shown some brilliance and maturity. He will be one to watch in 2012. Most improved is the Kelly team which has lifted in the past few rounds, showed good speed in the wet and are now getting on top of their dry set-up. This is my last column for 2011. I'm looking forward to doing absolutely nothing over the Christmas break. It will be so good to not have to pack my bags, sleep in a motel room or get on a plane. I'll be spending time on the farm with the kids and hoping Santa brings me just a bit more luck next year so I can go one better. Have a safe Christmas and see you in 2012.

I dread to think the whole championship result could come down to that this weekend at the finale in Sydney. I think it's time to go back to the old rule of closing the pits when there is a safety car on the track. The problem is that if a safety car is deployed around your pit window, teams have no choice but to bring all their cars in at the same time. And that is likely to happen several times at Homebush where there are concrete barriers and little run-off. If there is more than one competitive team car on the track at that time, the second team car just has to queue up behind their teammate and watch all their competitors go past them. I'd be really disappoitned if that determined the championship and so would the fans who want to see racing on the circuit not in the pits. It hasn't just affected our team. I think James Coutrney was affected at Bathurst. It is a problem for any team that has more than one competitive car. Of course, I can get around the problem by making sure I'm in front of my teammate, Jamie Whincup, all weekend. However, I could win both races and still lose the championship, so long as Jamie finishes in the top six. Saturday is crunch day for me. The whole season has come down to one race. If I can't reduce the points gap to Jamie by 38 on Saturday it's all over for me. But this is what a championship is all about; pressure going into a race like this. You need to step up and perform. Unfortunately I also need for Jamie to have some problems or issues. I think he's aware of the situation as well, so there's pressure there for both of us. The format is two 250km races on hard tres with qualifying both days and a top 10 shootout on the Saturday. Neither of us has a good record at Homebush. It's a circuit we both enjoy but we haven't been able to get the best out of our cars and ourselves. I'll address that by working very hard on car set-up so that it responds well. Then it's a case of getting that one quick lap in to get to the front of the queue and avoid the carnage of a street circuit. I believe the track layout, including tyre barriers and kerbs are the same as last year, but we are heading down to Sydney early this year to check things out. Earlier this year I suggested a Nascar Chase scenario where at some point in the season, the top 10 plus others within a certain points gap qualify for the championship chase with the points scrubbed back to zero. It creates a lot more excitement and puts more teams into title contention. Now I see some of the other drivers have been talking about it because TeamVodafone has dominated the season and are set up for a one-two finish this weekend. While some of that talk might be jealousy by other teams, I actually agree that it is a better format and something we need to look at to keep the excitemenet level high right to the bitter end. If we had re-set the points at Bathurst, I don't think there would be much difference between Jamie and me, anyway. Maybe some of the others such as Mark Winterbottom would be a lot closer, though.

Not just because it was wet and I was sliding around, but it was a case of crawling up in the points gap to my teammate Jamie Whincup, then sliding back down a little. I went from 194 points behind at the start of the weekend to about 152 behind after Saturday's race then 188 at the end of the weekend. But don't write me off for the championship just yet. The finale in Sydney next week is still going to be a nail biter. My first task is to get under the 150-point gap on the Saturday and then we'll see what happens on the Sunday. I still remember last year's Sunday race where the top three crashed heavily and the championship came down to who could get their car fixed the fastest in the pits. The beauty is that I'm guaranteed second place no matter what happens now as I have a big enough lead over third place.  The team has already wrapped up the teams' championship, so it's just up to Jamie and me to determine the driver order. I'm still not subscribing to the view that the trophy is Jamie's already. I've been whittling away at the points, but that won't be enough. I basically need to keep on my game and just see what luck brings. Jamie and I haven't had very good runs at Homebush in the past so we will both keen to rectify that and finish on a positive with a podium finish. At least I won't be giving away a weight penalty to Jamie with my moustache. That gets shaved off next Wednesday and I can't wait. Ok, so maybe it's not a weight penalty, but it has been a distraction. Not that I can blame the mo for my disastrous qualifying last Saturday. It was the y worst qualifying result in my entire career. To be honest, at that point, I didn't think I had much hope and that my tilt at the championship was lost. I was very much down on myself but I sat down with my race engineer JJ (Jeromy Moore) and we calmly analysed the situation and tried to make sense of why we ended up where we did. We came to a bit of a conclusion that there was a question mark over the tyres and my driving which induced some of the massive wheelspin. JJ and I are a good mix of characters. Nothing really phases either of us. We decided I had nothing to lose, so we went for an early pit strategy and got our heads down. I had to be patient in the race as I couldn't see anything in front because of the spray. At times where we were aquaplaning on the main straight through pools and even rivers of water at more than 200km/h in fifth gear. That was pretty scary. Sandown will have to get a major resurfacing between now and next year's 500km race. At the moment the track surface is a patchwork of bitumen with different levels of grip and some of the patches give off more spray than others. It was a nightmare on that track in those conditions, but we managed to make the most of it with sensible driving, careful passing and an early pit strategy. Sunday's conditions were like chalk and cheese. My fourth qualifying position was ok, but I had a terrible start and got stuck behind Shane van Gisbergen. We did another early pit to leapfrog him, but later in the race I had to pay with a longer pit stop for extra fuel and got leapfrogged by Will Davison. The soft tyres were only good for about five laps and from then everyone drove very conservatively making it difficult to pass. It turned out to be a bit of a procession. I had a few lunges in the last few laps, but I just couldn't get the grip to make it stick, so I backed off. But there will be no backing off in Sydney next week.

But realistically, it will only happen if my teammate Jamie Whincup has a DNF at Sandown this weekend or in Sydney next month. And I can't foresee that happening because of the reliability and consistency of his driving this season. My second and fifth places in Tasmania at the weekend have made my job a lot harder, especially with Jamie taking a clean sweep and maximum points. But I will fight to the bitter end. I'll never give up and never say die. It's going to be an uphill struggle, but I just need to win as many races as I can. I jumped to 100 points in front of Jamie after Bathurst and then fell to 143 behind after the Gold Coast. Now I've dropped another 51 points behind. However, if I'm still within 300 points after Sandown this weekend, then anything is possible at Homebush. We saw that last year with the top three guys getting caught up in an incident. James Courtney ended up winning the championship virtually on a race in the pits.  I've spoken to Jamie and he's still very mindful of the maths equation. If he doesn't score any more points this season he's still guaranteed second in the championship. But I know that won't be enough for him. Apart from the driver's championship, we are also just 24 points away from the team championship. I don't want to dwell too much on what happened in Tasmania, but I will admit I didn't get the job done in Sunday qualifying. I had three green sets of tyres. I used one for warm-up, then put on another set and got caught up in traffic which is always a problem on a short circuit like Symmons Plains. With one final set left I got a clean run, but I just didn't put a solid lap together and ended up 15th on the grid. I then had a discussion with my race engineer JJ (Jeromy Moore) and we decided on an early pit strategy which paid huge dividends. We had good pit stops on the weekend but a few teams had problems with the new crew rule that allows two extra people in pit lane. The problem is that it gets congested on the right hand side of the car. The changes have been made for safety and health reasons. Our sport has a good safety record and we have to keep making changes to make things even safer. The teams will just have to get their heads around how to manoeuvre more efficiently. Nascar does it with seemingly a cast of a thousand, but maybe they have a better set up with more space. They also need the extra person because they have five wheels nuts rather than one central one. Anyway, it's something that everyone will have to work out. I'm sure most teams will have it right for this weekend. Another lesson that will have to be learnt for this weekend is that two into one doesn't go. We saw a spectacular crash last year at the end of the back straight where two drivers tried to squeeze into the one slot at a corner where we are going 270+km/h. I don't think there is a problem with the track, just the drivers. Hopefully they have learnt from their mistake. For me, my plan will be simple; win both races. It's a track I know and love and have had good results on in the past, so I have no excuses.

We're at Tassie this weekend which is the third-last round and I've got to start narrowing that 143-point gap to my teammate, Jamie Whincup. While I'm concentrating on rounding up Jamie, I also have to be mindful of Shane van Gisbergen and Mark Winterbottom, especially Frosty who has been on a bit of a points charge over the last couple of rounds.I want to win the championship, but we also want to maintain our 1-2 position for TeamVodafone. If we finish that way, it will be the first time since 2004 when Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall did it for Stone Brothers Racing.Symmons Plains is not the shortest track of the series, but it has the shortest lap time of just over 50 seconds. There are only eight corners and only two places to pass, so it's important to get a good qualifying time, get out in front of the pack to avoid the carnage and have quick pit stops as it's easy to go down a lap if you have a bad pit stop.The laps disappear quite quickly in the race and also in practice where you have a limited number. The good thing for the fans is they get to see the cars go by every 50-odd seconds. Passing is usually down into the hairpin or off the end of the back straight. Some drivers have tried brave lunges elsewhere, but the lead driver can usually block and control the race.Weather plays a big part in Tassie and the prediction is for rain so we may not get to run a lot of the round on soft tyres. Last year we had a mixture of soft and hard tyres for the weekend, but it's all soft tyres for qualifying and racing this time.Most teams and drivers have now got their heads around how to get the best performance out of the soft tyres without hurting them too much. Symmons Plains is pretty easy on tyres, so they should last the duration. The tyre regulations for 2012 will be all softs except for the long distance races (Clipsal 500, Bathurst, Sandown, Gold Coast and Homebush) and Phillip Island which is pretty hard on tyres.The more we've been using the soft tyres, the more the teams and drivers love them and I think they're also good for the fans. Because they generate a lot of grip and speed, they provide more passing opportunities and because they fade quickly, they mix up the race order and deliver some unpredictable outcomes.Tassie can also be a bit of a smash-up derby, especially into the hairpin. But with the Sandown round the following weekend, drivers will be on orders to avoid car damage as they won't have much time to fix it. Tassie has been a good hunting ground for me. I qualified well there last year and won the first race but retired with a broken gearshift while leading in the Sunday race. It just came out in my hands. The problem was a combination of having too much preload and the design of the bolt pattern that holds the lever into the gearbox. But it's since been rectified and hopefully we won't have the problem again.I'm excited about the superbikes returning for this round. I love watching them from the pits as they come through the last turn on an incredible lean angle. They actually use a slightly different layout to the V8s as they go hard left at turn 1. They're always exciting to watch.Finally, I'm happy to announce I have reached 10,000 Twitter followers. I celebrated with a competition and gave away a signed race car rim.

... but it could very well be as tight a finish as the Melbourne Cup. I'm hoping to whittle down my teammate's 143-point lead next week at Tasmania and take the championship right to the wire in the finale at Sydney next month. Hopefully it will be as exciting a finish as the Cup. I don't normally watch horse racing, but it's like Bathurst or a footy grand final; you just have to watch it. And what a remarkable finish with just 3mm between the horses. But while they use a camera to determine the winner, close finishes in our sport are determined by the lap timer underneath the car. Maybe they should fit those to the saddles. The proposed 2012 V8 Supercars calendar was announced during the Bathurst weekend and included one November slot to be confirmed. A month later and they still haven't confirmed it. The drivers and teams are starting to get a bit anxious as they'd obviously like to start making travel arrangements and get their heads around the circuit. All we know is it will be an international race. It doesn't line up with any F1 race, so it will have to be a stand-alone event. I approached V8 Supercars boss Tony Cochrane but I couldn't get anything out of him. He just said "somewhere" which is very much a Tony response. The talk has been that it could be the Philippines or Hong Kong, but they are not likely until the following year. I just hope it's somewhere in Asia, because that puts it in our time zone for better TV coverage. That is always the big problem with racing in the Mid East. It just doesn't suit our TV coverage. There is a possibility it could be at the new Buddh International Circuit in India where they staged the F1 at the weekend. It was quite dirty and dusty and had just been completed virtually while they were unloading the cars. But it looks sensational, with a lot of elevation changes and high-speed corners. I think it's a wise decision to start the season in Adelaide in March. It's been a bit of a false start for the fans the last couple of years. To start the last two seasons in February in the Mid East was a controversial and disappointing decision and most fans didn't really consider the season started until we hit the streets of Adelaide anyway. We still go to the Mid East, but next year it's in November in Abu Dhabi and we are alongside the F1. That will double our exposure to the world audience with our support at the Australian Grand Prix continuing. While the Melbourne event is a non-championship round, the Abu Dhabi races will be counted in the points, so I'm sure there will be a lot of Aussie motorsport fans eagerly tuning in. Our team has a close association with the McLaren Vodafone team and it's always great fun to rub shoulders with the F1 drivers and crew. The Sandown 500 makes a return next year which is an event and a track that I love. It's my old home track and there is a sense of tradition about the Sandown 500 as the prelude to Bathurst, which, by the way, returns to its rightful place over the first weekend in October. Phillip Island has been kind to me as an enduro event, but Sandown is the traditional 500 and I've had great results there. It's also closer to Melbourne with a fantastic grandstand where you can see 90 per cent of the lap so we always get a huge crowd. Our race in Hamilton next year will apparently be our last on the tough street circuit. I think it's a safe bet, though, that we'll return to New Zealand in 2013. We've got such a great fan base there and about 30 per cent of drivers, teams and crews are Kiwis. Meanwhile, most of our team are getting into Movember to support awareness of men's health issues and it will be the first time in my life I've had facial hair. It's going to be interesting. I'll keep people updated on my Twitter account which is fast approaching 10,000 followers. There will be a special gift for the 10,000th member, although I'm not sure yet what it will be.

The run of bad luck started in qualifying on the Saturday with electrical problems. By the time the team had got the car going, it started raining and we lost the opportunity to post a good time and get into the top 10. As it turned out, we hadn't fixed the problem at all and when my co-driver, Andy Priaulx, went out on the formation lap for the race it reared its ugly head again and the engine kept cutting out. Fortunately he got the car back to the pits and we lost some 19 laps trying to fix it. The team did their utmost to change as much of the electronics as they could and we went back out only to encounter another issue. We came back in, changed some more bits and finally got racing. With three laps to go of Andy's stint, one of those bollards that everybody seemed to be hitting got lodged in the radiator. I got into the car and only did eight laps before the bollard caused overheating and we had to retire the car. Zero points. How frustrating. I'd gone from 50 points in front of Jamie after Bathurst to 100 behind as he went on to brilliantly win again on a track where he really does well. The boys in our team didn't get any sleep Saturday night as they completely changed the wiring loom. Sunday morning came and we had no problems with the car so we were confident of having a great race from fifth position. Andy was running well - faster than most of the full-time drivers - and our team was running 1-2 before that same problem of queuing in pitlane came up again. Just as our pit window opened the safety car came out and we had to queue behind Jamie. We went into pitlane second and came out in 15th. And on a track like the Gold Coast it's extremely difficult to overtake, especially toward the end of the race when all the bollards had been wiped out at the chicanes and everyone was straight-lining them. We finished 20th, so I'm now 143 points behind Jamie who finished second on Sunday behind Frosty, another driver who seems to do well at Surfers Paradise. Hopefully that's all the bad luck out of the way for the rest of the year now and I can focus on Tassie, Sandown and Sydney. In the wash-up of the Gold Coast there is a lot of talk about the event's success and future format. I think our category has shown in the past couple of years that we can continue to pull the crowds even without an international race. And while I'm sure we could pull big crowds without the international drivers - like we do at other street races such as Adelaide and Sydney - I'd like to keep the formula going. I'm not so sure about going back to having an international race there. Bringing in international vehicles creates all sorts of problems in pit lane and I don't think the infrastructure is good enough to house both V8 Supercars and international race cars. They are also talking about changing the driver pairings which would mix things up a bit. I think TeamVodafone definitely had the pick of the international drivers this time with Andy and Sebastien Bourdais faster than many of the full-time drivers. But most of the internationals acquitted themselves very well and I think it gives the event a point of difference from the rest of the series. Not that the full-time drivers didn't do well. In particular young James Moffatt is really showing his class. He's got a good car, but he's also got a mature head on his shoulders. With the move of Lee Holdsworth from Holden to Ford at Stone Brothers Racing, it's the start of the silly season and we should see a few more changes over the next few months. We'll be keeping a keen eye on the movements, particularly on how it affects us with driver pairings for the enduros next year.