Just one lap more would have won it

If only it had been one lap longer, I think I could have won. Seriously, it was as exciting a finish for me as it was for the fans watching.

Some people are wondering how I could catch Garth Tander so quickly but then not be able to get past. The problem is that the rules say that on the last two laps the lead driver is allowed do whatever they can to block the chasing driver. Had I been able to get to GT a lap earlier, I might have got through, but as it turned out he did a fantastic job of holding me out and placing his car just where I didn't want it to be. At the end of the race our car still had good pace and certainly better tyre condition than GT's car. But that doesn't matter. His team did the right thing by putting themselves in the right position at the right time of the race.

With the way the race unfolded, every time we were in our pit window a safety car would come out and we'd be pitting behind the #88 car. We have always had that philosophy as a team that the lead car takes priority in the pits and the other car waits.

My race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and chief engineer Adrian Burgess made the decision to pit my co-driver, Mark Skaife, out of sync with our teammates so we could get around the queueing problem. But as luck would have it, about 10 laps later another safety car came out and we were back to square one. I think Mark and I must have passed more cars than anyone else in the field. It definitely made it a challenging race for us.

A lot of people I talked to during the race didn't back us for a win especially when we were running about eighth, but when that oil went down and I was able to get past three cars at one point that suddenly put us in contention. Then I was able to chase down Bright, Murph and set our sights on GT.

Honestly I didn't think we could catch GT. He was way too far out in front. But every lap we were pulling 0.5 to 0.7 seconds out of him. Jamie was looking all day like the one to beat and at the end of the day he was understandably bitterly disappointed. Knowing that they had alternator trouble early in the race, I'd have thought the team would get on top of it, but eventually it became a terminal problem.

Second was satisfying, but it doesn't taste as good as victory. Everyone wants to win at Bathurst, none more so than me. But at least I can take away the consolation prize of going from 91 points behind Jamie to 100 points in front. It's a great outcome from the weekend, but I'm not getting carried away with leading the championship.

There is still a long way to go with four more rounds, 1200 points up for grabs and a number of variables that can change things such as two street circuits and international co-drivers at the Gold Coast. Last year, the big controversy at Bathurst was the delayed broadcast, so this year Seven went live and will continue to broadcast live for the rest of the season. Of course the problem is you then miss action while the ads are on. I suppose we can't have it both ways, but maybe Seven needs to have another look at it with banner ads or inset ads. I'm sure they will because Bathurst is as much their grand final as it is ours. But they need to do something quick because there are still four rounds to broadcast live this year.