Lowndes Penalised Two Grid Spots

Red Bull Racing Australia’s Craig Lowndes has been penalised two grid spots after the post-race investigation of the incident at turn three with Mark Winterbottom and Fabian Coulthard during lap one of Race 22.

The ruling – completed post-race, to the protest of many fans on social media – played out yesterday evening and despite the small setback Lowndes was positive about today’s Races 23 and 24 at the Coates Hire Ipswich 360.

In fact, it could be a very interesting day at Queensland Raceway given the spot of rain received this morning.

Lowndes said RBRA had been expecting rain, though it has been a long time since a run in the wet at the circuit.

“It’ll mix it up for sure – we haven’t had a wet race here I think since the old 500 days,” Lowndes said prior to the back-to-back qualifying sessions.

“It’ll be interesting, especially if we have to qualify now in this weather. Not a lot of us have done wet weather testing for a while, so it’ll make it interesting for all of us.”

Sitting second in the Championship, Lowndes came home fourth in yesterday’s race despite the early contact. He didn’t volunteer much when asked to reflect on the incident.

“The penalty was, basically the Stewards and Cam (McConville, driving standards observer and investigation officer) said it was a breach of our rules, but it wasn’t a breach in the sense of a big breach. So he gave us a two grid spot penalty, which obviously we’ll take on board and move on.

“We will (have a better day today).”

Lowndes was trumped by his teammate yesterday, despite Jamie Whincup’s poor history at the circuit, comparative to Lowndes’ five straight wins in 2011 and ’12.

After the race yesterday, Lowndes said: “I had a good run on the inside of Fabian Coulthard into turn three and I pulled it up.

“My impression is that Coulthard overshot it and he had the contact with Frosty. There’s not a mark on my car. I didn’t feel anything.

“Overall for the day we’re a little disappointed, we didn’t quite have what we hoped in terms of set-up. We made a change at half-time and went a step forward but we didn’t quite fix the problem. But tomorrow’s a new day and we’ve got two races to get back there.”

For more insight into yesterday’s race, see the Drivers’ Quoteboard: Race 22.

Qualifying will begin at 9.35am AEST today.