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Craig Lowndes
Contributor
23 Mar 2011
4 min read

... from Clipsal 500 dramas to taking McLaren's amazing Formula One machine for a run up and over Mount Panorama.

In Adelaide we had good car speed with the Commodore, the car was strong and I was comfortable. But on Saturday we didn't qualify where we should have and I got bumped out of the ten, that was disappointing. So we had a bit of a battle on our hands but through strategy and everything else it worked out. We moved through the pack and got a great result _ third from eleventh. I was delighted with that, a great result and I couldn't have wished for anything more.

Then Sunday was full of ups and downs. We qualified ninth, probably didn't put a lap together as good as we should have, but we were maintaining position in the race. Then we got a flat tyre from debris off turn two, I think it came from Brighty's car.

I just didn't see it, I'll need to have a look at the replay and see what it was all about. I felt it on the previous lap but by the time I'd radioed in, and the guys checked as I went past and said 'come in', it was completely flat.

And then there was that pit exit. It was exciting to have contact with Murph, get turned around and then look at everyone coming out of pit lane _ quite amazing.

Sunday was all about recovery. We recovered from a poor qualifying, then got a flat. Recovered from that, then had problems on the pit exit. Then we just ran out of laps.

But the car speed was good all weekend and we managed to get back to 12th, so we still got good points. Jamie did a great job. He was disappointed after Saturday's results. No doubt he was going to try and fix that up the next day, he hates losing.

So he was pretty determined on the Sunday to make it work. He had good car speed, was sensible about the wet, looked after the car and away he went. It was an awesome weekend, great audience and Clipsal's always a class act.

Jonathon Webb had a great run on the Sunday, as did Dave Reynolds, he qualified well on the Sunday and raced well in the wet. There's some great guys, the normal guys up the front but the next generation of drivers are coming through and proving to be fast.

We flew into Bathurst on Monday and weren't sure whether the F1 run was going to go ahead, it was bucketing down with rain, rivers running everywhere across the circuit. It was still raining Tuesday morning but about 8am the clouds started to clear and it dried about 11am in time for Jenson to do his observation lap.

It was a great day and the McLaren better than I expected over Skyline and the Dipper, going over the top it was just really nice to drive. It had that much downforce and that much grip, it turned. Through the Dipper it wasn't as bad I thought. It surprised me, being the style a Formula One car is I thought it would struggle around Bathurst.

I bottomed out going down Conrod, which is pretty normal, but it was flat down into the Chase, flat coming out of the Chase, really good, just pulling gears. The corners do come up faster but the car's built for it and you get your mind up to speed. And those brakes are sensational, it was the first time I've driven a car with carbon fibre brakes..amazing.

Now it's off to the Melbourne GP weekend. We've got some new components in the car we want to give a few more miles so it's a good opportunity to do that in race conditions.

It's another big, great audience for V8 Supercars and the McLaren and Vodaphone bosses out for the weekend we'll be taking it all pretty seriously.

Craig Lowndes
Contributor
Craig Lowndes is a former CarsGuide contributor, and Australian motorsport legend. He hung up his helmet on a full time racing career at the end of 2018.
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