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Lowndes: 'I'm far from retirement'

13 Mar 2015
"Everybody talks about retirement, but I feel far from that side of it. I'd like to drive two to five more years," three-time champ says.
3 mins by James Pavey
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It was great news for Craig Lowndes fans last week with the announcement he wouldremain with the benchmark V8 Supercars team for another two years - and despite speculation, the superstar driver insists he is far from retiring.

Lowndes will remain part of the Triple Eight fold, which is expanding to three cars to accommodate young racer Shane van Gisbergen for 2016 - and couldn't be happier about locking his seat down early this season.

"There's no doubt it's nice to have something [so] you know where the future is going to be laid," Lowndes told v8supercars.com.au at the Formula 1Rolex Australian Grand Prix this morning.

"For me it's a great opportunity to have another two years in the sport and everybody talks about retirement, but I feel far from that side of it.

"I'd like to drive two to five more years - it's really one of those things that comes down to the two elements of enjoyment and being competitive.

"But all of that said, you know the young guys are coming on again and the competition's getting stronger."

Like teammate Jamie Whincup, the Gen2 phase - opening the category to the possibility of different engine variations and body shapes - was something front of mind when planning his future.

"The cars are developing at the end of '16 going into '17, so there are a lot of elements in the sport that are going to change over the next two years, which for me is exciting times."

While Lowndes will have a lot to offer heading into the development phase of Supercars, he knows theup-and-coming stars will continue be strong challengers, not slowed by any potential changes.

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"Experience is always a good thing ... especially going into that development side of it," he said.

"But the young guys - you see with even Daniel Ricciardo, when they go into that new generation Formula 1, car he grabbed it with both hands, grabbed it by the horns, and just drove the car. Whereas a lot of the established guys didn't like it because it wasn't as nice and finessed as probably what they expected. So it can be a positive and can also be a negative.

"But it's exciting times because I like that development phase.

"Having Gizzy on board with three cars, it is going to be intense because three drivers going head to head in the same team - but we all know as race drivers, once you put the helmet on your teammate becomes irrelevant, you want to go out there and win races for yourself.

"Yes we're expanding to three cars, but as Roland has allowed Jamie and I to do, we'll be racing hard and fast to the chequered flag. There's no doubt we will."

Who will be racing what will essentially be the third Triple Eight car? That's a decision still to be made.

"There's those things we still need to discuss. You can't fit three cars in a two car garage ... there will be a difference in the garage line up somewhere, it's just a matter of who where and what," Lowndes said.

"But at the end of the day the main thing is all three cars run out of the race team, get prepped and repaired, which is what they'll do and it's really up to the engineers and drivers to make it happen."

Lowndes starts today's first race at the Australian Grand Prix from 13th. The race kicks off at 2.20pm local time.

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