Red Bull teammates battle for number one

A V8X magazine poll has ranked Craig Lowndes the best driver of the current V8 era from 1993 to the present day, topping a list of 50 nominations.

Lowndes only just pipped his Red Bull Racing Australia teammate Jamie Whincup in the rankings by 20 V8 Supercars insiders, including media, team personnel, former drivers and managers, who were asked to determine the results from 50 to one.

Mark Skaife, Marcos Ambrose and Garth Tander rounded out the top five, with the top four all being rated number one in at least one of the rankings.

"Lowndes and Whincup polled the strongest across the top 50 rankings, perhaps helped by the fact they are at the forefront of V8 Supercars at present," said V8X editor Adrian Musolino.

"Lowndes coming out on top seems fitting given he will soon become the first driver to score a century of race wins. And he has been competitive for most of the V8 era, from his debut at Bathurst in 1994 to winning races this season.

"We asked those who were polled to focus on both Championship and Bathurst results, so Lowndes' Mount Panorama pedigree and consistent Championship challenges no doubt made a difference."

Lowndes, who turns 40 on June 21 - and says it will not slow him down - has scored 97 race wins, won at Mount Panorama five times and the Championship three times, albeit not since 1999. However, he has finished runner-up to five-time champion Whincup the last three seasons and runs second to Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom in the title chase this year.

The Championship resumes with the SKYCITY Triple Crown Darwin 400 at Hidden Valley Raceway on June 20-22.

"We found the most intriguing differences in the votes came in the bottom-end of the top 50 as the participants considered co-driver regulars and privateers from the early days of this era," Musolino added.

Notable finishers further down the order included star newcomer Chaz Mostert at 44 and his FPR Pirtek Enduro Cup co-driver Paul Morris at 43, Brad Jones Racing's championship contender Fabian Coulthard was ranked 35th and Volvo's emerging superstar Scott McLaughlin was 25th.

Musolino said narrowing the focus to the V8 era, where the technical regulations were in the main consistent, meant there was a stronger basis for comparison as opposed to looking at the whole history of Australian touring cars

In a separate poll Peter Brock was voted number one among the top 10 of the pre-V8 ATCC era (1960 to 1992). He led Dick Johnson, Jim Richards, Allan Moffat and Ian Geoghegan.

"We wanted to provide a balance to the top 50 by splitting the history of Australian touring cars into two categories," Musolino explained. "It's interesting to note that all-time greats Peter Brock, Larry Perkins, Dick Johnson and Jim Richards were the drivers to feature in both rankings."

The rankings are published in issue 81 of V8X, which is on-sale in stores from today (Thursday June 5) or available via Google Play and App store and online here.