It was a picturesque day at the ITM 500 in Auckland as the V8 Supercars roared into action with a practice session, followed by a 20 minute qualifying and then the 200km finale.

It was a tight qualifying with only eight tenths of a second separating the entire field, that’s just a touch over 37 metres between positions 1 and 25. The Holden Racing Team VF Commodores were almost inseparable with Tander taking 14th position on the grid and Courtney just one place behind in 15th.

It was a chaotic opening to Race 30 for the final 69 lap showdown at Pukekohe Park Raceway. In the opening few corners Tander and Courtney had both jumped up a number of places each, but for Tander his charge through the field was short lived when Winterbottom spun in front of him.

While he was lucky to not sustain any significant damage he did lose track position and dropped to 21st. Courtney narrowly avoided the incident and was sitting comfortably in 11th.

It was only lap 7 when the first and single safety car of the race was called. Percat had spun and was stopped in the middle of the track. All 24 cars still racing opted to make their first stop and pit lane was hectic as each boom had cars double stacked. Both HRT cars swapped from their soft starting tyres to hard tyres and took on fuel.

On lap 35 Tander was called in for his second stop and his team bolted on new tyres and topped up the fuel. Just two laps later Courtney followed suit. Back out on track and the two HRT cars were positioned together and were locked in a fierce battle with Waters who was sandwiched between the two.

It was musical track positions as Van Gisbergen joined the group and overtook Tander. Waters was aggressively trying to pass Courtney when he pushed him from behind, the result was a detour for them both across the grass. They were lucky not to lose track position and Courtney was briefly able to pull away.

Waters was relentless and with just 12 laps to go was again hassling Courtney, this time turning him around and causing him to drop back to 16th. Tander meanwhile made the most of the situation and moved into 10th. While it was little constellation to Courtney, Waters did receive a pit lane penalty.

Tander crossed the finish line in 10th and Courtney in 15th. Tander’s position in the Championship remains unchanged in 6th while Courtney is 9th. The Holden Racing Team are still in 2nd place in the Team’s Championship. Next the V8 Supercars head to Phillip Island 20-22 November.

Adrian Burgess, Managing Director:
“Today’s race and qualifying showed the problem we’ve had all weekend, we just struggled with the first corner and the first complex, and the last corner. Everything we tried didn’t seem to make much in-roads into it. As you saw qualifying wasn’t great and the race was difficult.”

“We were driving around with the others towards the back of the field and getting involved in other people’s incidents, but at the end of the day we didn’t have a car quick enough to do anything more with it. So we have to go away and do some homework because what we had this weekend wasn’t good enough.”

“At the Gold Coast we were competitive and this weekend we haven’t been. The characteristics of the circuit haven’t suited the car and to be honest we haven’t done a good enough job to get on top of it.”