The Holden Racing Team VF Commodores of James Courtney/Greg Murphy and Garth Tander/Nick Percat have finished fifth and 22nd in today’s Wilson Security Sandown 500 after a range of incidents during the 161 lap race.
Murphy and Percat started the cars from seventh and 13th. The first drama occurred when Percat received a mechanical black flag on lap 10 for loose rear bodywork, and was penalised for pit lane speeding a lap later.

Amazingly, Murphy was also called into the pits for loose bodywork on lap 23 but thankfully HRT was able to use it as a scheduled stop.

Some clever strategy elevated the #22 entry into the top 10 by the time Murphy handed over to Courtney on lap 63 and from there Courtney demonstrated impressive pace and charged home to fifth, despite sporting substantial cosmetic damage.

Tander and Percat were also on track to recover strongly until Tander was involved in a lap 89 altercation with David Wall, sustaining steering damage and spending a lengthy spell in the pits for repairs.

The Holden Racing Team’s attention now turns to preparing for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in four weeks’ time.