The Holden Racing Team has bagged valuable Championship points with both cars finishing inside the top seven in Race 16, the first of two 200km races at the Townsville 400. It was a picturesque day for racing in tropical north Queensland today with the sun shining and the temperature hovering around 26 degrees.

As always there was no room for error in qualifying with just five tenths of a second separating the top 15 cars. James qualified 7th and Garth 15th, however Garth benefited after van Gisbergen was excluded from qualifying for a tyre infringement and started 14th.

The start of the 70-lap race around Reid Park kicked off in a relatively orderly fashion with no major incidents unfolding off the grid. Garth got off to a flying start and succeeded in moving up four places to 10th while James held off challenges for his 7th position. Both HRT cars chose a soft-hard-soft tyre strategy, a popular decision and one that the majority of teams in pit lane opted for.

The first pit stops by the HRT crew were textbook with both VF Commodores re-joining the race further up the field then when they had entered pit lane. Once all cars in the race had completed their first stop James was up to 5th and Garth just three places behind in 8th.

After the second round of pit stops Garth was still holding strong in 8th and James had only dropped back one place to 6th. With no safety cars called for the entirety of the race it came down to which driver could take care of his tyres the best and hold on to the chequered flag.

In the concluding laps James wasn’t able to hold off the advances of Scott Pye and lost one place. Chaz Mostert’s tyres went off which opened the door for the HRT drivers to move up the field. James finished 6th and Garth, who had a clear three second gap either side to his rivals, was just one place behind 7th.