The Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney and Garth Tander have delivered two strong race results at Hidden Valley Raceway today; Courtney was second in today’s first sprint while Tander claimed fifth position in this afternoon’s second race.

In qualifying earlier today, a great 1:08.5384 lap time saw Courtney claim his first pole position with Holden’s official factory racing team.

Under race conditions, Courtney made a good start to today’s first 100km race and held the lead through until lap 6 before pitting for the soft compound Dunlop control tyre a little later on lap 13.

With the field re-settled after the shuffle of pit stops, Courtney found himself in third position behind the Ford Performance Racing Fords of Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison. He pushed on with determination and managed to take advantage of a late top order shake-up to claim second place and the team’s second podium for the weekend.

Courtney had again qualified in a very competitive third place for the second 100km battle of the day and had full intentions of completing the three, two, one run of results. Unfortunately, an early race electrical issue disappointingly put an end to his day.

On the other side of the HRT garage, teammate Garth Tander did not secure the qualifying results he would have liked setting the 15th and 11th fastest times respectively ahead of races 18 and 19.

After making a good start to today’s first race, Tander battled for position within the mid pack before being called to pit for soft tyres on lap 16. He skilfully picked his way through the field in a determined effort to crack the top 10 and took the race 18 chequered flag in ninth position.

Back in his #2 HRT Commodore for today’s second sprint, Tander made an exceptional start and had catapulted into fourth position at the conclusion of the first lap. However, as a result of a multi-car lap one incident, the field was forced to re-form on the grid as damaged cars and debris was cleared from the circuit while race control prepared to start the race for the second time.

With the field back racing, Tander again surged forward and found himself in fifth place by lap 10. Locked in behind Tekno Auto Sport’s Jonathan Webb, Tander battled with a damaged exhaust system which was the result of an earlier race incident involving Will Davison.

Consequently, he did not have the outright pace to make any additional challenges for position and claimed a well-deserved top five finish at race end.

The Holden Racing Team will now head back to their Clayton based workshop to commence preparations for the Sucrogen Townsville 400 in 18 days’ time.