Jamie Whincup
Jamie Whincup | |
---|---|
Jamie Whincup at Albert Park in 2006 | |
Nationality |
|
Born |
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | 6 February 1983
Supercars Record | |
Car number | 1 |
Current team | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
Series championships | 7 (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017) |
Races | 470 |
Race wins | 114 |
Podium finishes | 230 |
Pole positions | 79 |
2018 Championship position | 3rd (2716 pts)* |
Jamie Whincup (born 6 February 1983) is an Australian professional racing driver competing in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. He currently drives the No. 1 Holden ZB Commodore for Triple Eight Race Engineering. Whincup is a seven-time Supercars champion, a four-time Bathurst 1000 winner and in 2017 also won the Bathurst 12 Hour. As of the 26th August 2018, Whincup is the all-time record holder in the Supercars Championship for race wins, at 114 career wins. He is also the first driver to win the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy twice at Pukekohe Park Raceway in Auckland, New Zealand.
Early career
In 2001 Whincup embarked on the Australian Formula Ford Championship with a team run by his father and Uncle Graeme (a former Sports Sedan star) with mechanical support from fellow V8 Supercar driver Greg Ritter, racing with the Mygale Formula Ford team.[1] After finishing third in his debut year, he moved to Sonic Motorsport(owner Michael Ritter, Brother of Greg Ritter ) for the 2002 season and went on to win the championship convincingly, which secured him his first ever V8 Supercar drive with Garry Rogers Motorsport.[2]
Whincup landed himself a full-time drive in 2005 with the Melbourne-based Tasman Motorsport. He had many solid results throughout the season, including a fourth at the one-off Chinese round at the Shanghai International Circuit, a third at the Sandown 500 and most notably, second at the Bathurst 1000 endurance events with teammate Jason Richards after leading late in the race.
2006-9
In 2006, Whincup jumped from Holden to Ford and joined Triple Eight Race Engineering alongside Craig Lowndes. Whincup had a stellar first season, taking victory in the two biggest races of the season, the Clipsal 500 and Supercheap Auto 1000, the latter as co-driver to Craig Lowndes. After some incidents and unreliability, Whincup finished the championship in a slightly disappointing tenth position at years end.
In 2007, Whincup returned with the same team which was re-branded TeamVodafone and celebrated several victories included a second Bathurst 1000 title alongside teammate Craig Lowndes and new engineer Mark Dutton. Whincup finished second in the driver's title by a mere two points to Garth Tander from the HSV Dealer Team. Whincup began a mentoring role as part of TeamVodafone's Junior Development Program, and as a co-ambassador for Formula Ford Australia alongside Will Davison. His first round win for 2007, at a water-logged Winton, was the first round win for the year by a Ford driver. He celebrated both his 50th V8 Supercar Championship start and his inaugural pole position at Triple Eight Race Engineering's test track, Queensland Raceway. Whincup moved into the championship lead after a successful defence his and Lowndes' Bathurst 1000 crown, coming just weeks after teaming with Lowndes to win the last Sandown 500. Entering Surfers Paradise for the Indy 300 with the series lead from Garth Tander, a difficult day on Sunday with a spin in the final race saw the lead revert to Tander who won the round. Whincup then had a disappointing weekend at Desert 400 at the Bahrain International Circuit, where poor qualifying pace for Triple Eight was compounded by a run of all three races marred by minor accidents, and he took away zero points. Tander and Craig Lowndes both had fairly good weekends, putting Tander into the series lead over Lowndes heading into the Symmons Plains race in Tasmania. Tander backed up his previous two round wins in Tasmania with a dominant race 1 win on Saturday, but a slow stop in race two dropped him to tenth, before disaster in race three after touching Steven Richards, he broke his steering and was out. Whincup won both races, and headed into the Grand Finale at Phillip Island on the 1–2 December weekend with a slender seven point championship lead. Whincup failed to keep his slender margin at Phillip Island; after Garth Tander won the first two races Whincup faced a seven-point deficit. After the final race Whincup finished second, behind Todd Kelly and two places ahead of Tander but fell just two points short of the title. At the 2007 V8 Supercar Gala Awards Dinner at the completion of the 2007 season, Whincup was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal, deemed to be the "Best and Fairest" award for V8 Supercars.
Whincup won the 2008 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, and won a further six rounds after that including the Bathurst 1000 for a third year running. He clinched his first Championship after winning the first race in the final round at Oran Park Raceway, and was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal for the second year running at the V8 Gala Awards.
In 2009, Whincup successfully defended his title in a brand new Ford FG Falcon, including wins at Adelaide, Hamilton, Tasmania, Darwin, Townsville, Oueensland, Phillip Island and Barbagallo. Despite bad luck in the endurance races and at the Gold Coast, Whincup was able to put it all together at Sydney Olympic Park and became the first back-to-back championship winner since Marcos Ambrose in 2003–2004.[3]
2010-12
In 2010, following the team's switch to Holden VE Commodores, Whincup won the first four races of the season[4] and Hamilton but a run of bad luck at Queensland raceway and Winton saw him relinquish the championship lead for the first time in two years, and sat second in the points table, just ahead of teammate Craig Lowndes in third. He became close to becoming a 3-time champion, the next triple champion in a row after Mark Skaife from 2000–2002 and the second man to win the driver's championship in both a Ford and a Holden after Norm Beechey, but due to a multi car crash in the 25th race of the season at the Sydney Telstra 500 in wet weather his car was badly damaged and couldn't continue. In the 26th and final race of the season he was out of reach to score enough points to take back the lead from James Courtney and finished 2nd in the season.
In 2011, Whincup regained the championship from James Courtney becoming the first International V8 Supercars Champion. Whincup won races in Abu Dhabi, Adelaide, Perth, Winton, Townsville, Gold Coast, Tasmania and Sandown. The title that went down to the final race in Sydney where Whincup beat teammate Craig Lowndes by 35 points.[5] Triple Eight Race Engineering's stellar season earned them 1st in the Teams Championship, their second Teams Championship with Holden.[6]
The 2012 season saw Whincup join Bob Jane, Allan Moffat and Jim Richards as a four-time series champion. Twelve race wins at Adelaide, Symmons Plains, Hidden Valley, Townsville, Sydney Motorsport Park, Abu Dhabi and Winton, and also the marquee endurance races, the Bathurst 1000 and the Gold Coast 600 resulted in a 339-point championship win over his teammate Lowndes.
2013
The 2012 season was the last of the Holden/Ford duopoly in V8 Supercars, as 2013 would see a new challenge arise in the form of two extra manufacturers - Nissan and Mercedes-Benz. Whincup would stay with Triple Eight Race Engineering and Holden, but with a new look - Red Bull replaced Vodafone as major sponsor, with the team to be known as Red Bull Racing Australia.[7]
Despite the new era increasing outright competitiveness across the field and the season having 13 separate race winners, Whincup once again proved dominant. He won 11 out of the 34 races, winning at New Zealand, Barbagallo, Hidden Valley, Ipswich, Sandown, Phillip Island and Homebush. He was also victorious in the series' first outing to the US at the Circuit of the Americas, taking victory on three of four occasions. He went on to once again eclipse Lowndes in the points table, and earn himself a fifth title, putting himself alongside Ian Geoghegan, Dick Johnson and Mark Skaife in terms of championship successes.
2014
In 2014, Whincup would win a record sixth title. Once again partnering with Paul Dumbrell, he narrowly missed out on the Bathurst 1000 title for the second year running. After a final lap battles with Mark Winterbottom in 2013, this time he lost out to Ford Performance Racing teammate Chaz Mostert as he ran low on fuel. He did, however, win the Enduro Cup with Dumbrell as the most successful driver combination across the endurance events.
2015
Whincup lost out to long-time rival Winterbottom with a difficult in 2015 and he finished fifth in the championship after he won 2 races in Sydney 500.
2016
In 2016, Whincup became the second driver in Supercars/ATCC history to win 100 races, the other being Triple Eight teammate Lowndes at the Sydney Motorsport Park. Triple Eight’s strategy of making early first stops with all three of its cars paid dividends as the team stormed to its seventh straight victory. At the Bathurst 1000, Whincup was lodged by Triple Eight Race Engineering but dismissed nine days after the race.
2017
2017 saw Triple Eight become the official Holden factory squad under the banner Red Bull Holden Racing Team. Whincup and Triple Eight were in the shadow of Dick Johnson Racing Team Penske being out qualified and outraced by their drivers Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard. Whincup however proved, despite a lack of poles and wins by his standards, that consistency was key to his eventual championship win which he recorded in the final race in Newcastle after McLaughlin had received 3 penalties relegating him behind the 11th position he needed to win the championship. Whincup not only won his record seventh title but also the final race win for the Australian built Commodore.
2018
Whincup was one of 14 drivers in the field driving the Holden ZB Commodore. During the opening day of the Adelaide 500, Whincup has overshadowed a thrilling qualifying session and slid wide through the high-speed sweeper on his final qualifying lap, slamming the outside concrete wall. His teammate Shane van Gisbergen has claimed provisional 2 poles and won 2 races. But Whincup finished 6th in race 1 and failing a transmission failure ended up 26th in race 2. At the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Whincup start on 2nd and finished 2nd in race 3. He takes the polesitter and claimed in race 4 opened his victory. Whincup finish 2nd in race 5 and 3rd in race 6, he took the inaugural Larry Perkins Trophy for being the highest points-scorer across the weekend, but was left disappointed by his start in the finale. After poor performances at Phillip Island, Barbagallo and Winton, Whincup finished 3rd at Hidden Valley. Whincup marked the 10th running of the Townsville Street Circuit by taking his 10th race win in commanding fashion. Whincup took the lead from McLaughlin on lap two and controlled proceedings for the balance of the 70 laps, leading by more than 10 seconds for the bulk of it. On September 16, Whincup and Dumbrell led from start to finish and sweep of the RABBLE.club Sandown 500 podium for a dominant Triple Eight Holden squad, as Enduro Cup kicked off.
GT Racing
On 5 February 2017, Whincup drove in and won his first ever GT race when he teamed with Lowndes and Finnish driver Toni Vilander to win the 2017 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour driving a Ferrari 488 GT3 for Maranello Motorsport.[8] By winning the Bathurst 12 Hour, Whincup joined Triple Eight teammate Craig Lowndes and as well as Gregg Hansford, Allan Grice, Tony Longhurst, John Bowe, Dick Johnson, Paul Morris and Jonathon Webb as winners of both the Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 Hour races.
Controversy
Bathurst incident
On 9 October 2016, Whincup was running second behind Scott McLaughlin in the closing stages of the Bathurst 1000, when he attempted to pass McLaughlin coming into the chase, but the two touched sending McLaughlin across the grass on the exit of the corner. Attempting to redress the situation, Whincup slowed down to allow McLaughlin to rejoin the track ahead. However as he slowed down, Garth Tander, who was running directly behind the pair in third place, tried to take advantage and pass both drivers, but as he pulled out to pass Whincup, McLaughlin rejoined the track and ran into the side of the HRT car, knocking both drivers out of contention as Whincup carried on. However, whilst the safety car was out to clean up the incident, Whincup received a 15 second penalty which would be applied after the race. Once the safety car pulled in, Whincup attempted to pull out a 15 second gap over Will Davison, who was focused on defending the net lead of the race over Shane van Gisbergen. But this plan failed when Todd Kelly spun into the gravel on lap 158 and brought out the safety car. Whincup took the win on the road but dropped down to 11th once the penalty was applied, giving the race win to Davison. Motorsport fans are irate with Whincup after the Holden driver caused a huge crash near the thrilling end of the Bathurst 1000.
“I just went out there and raced hard. I feel sorry for the result, I’m just going up to the Volvo and HRT guys. You don’t want to see any wrecked cars. I’ll just go and apologise for the result. I feel the move was on, I was in there. He squeezed me narrow, we had contact. I was happy to redress, but the two cars weren’t there to redress.
“We tried hard like we always do. We’ll fight back in a couple of weeks time.”
Holden Racing Team owner Ryan Walkinshaw was furious at a “greedy” Whincup who he said robbed the Holden Racing Team of a potential Bathurst 1000 fairytale ending. Walkinshaw slammed the Red Bull Racing Australia driver for the chaotic crash which took Tander out of the race and left McLaughlin to limp home in 15th. “It’s gutting for the boys,” Walkinshaw said. “If it hadn’t been for Jamie (Whincup) making that move on Scotty (McLaughlin) we probably would've won that race. It’s a difficult thing to take. A win for that car would’ve been an absolute fairytale and it was a real shame it got spoiled unnecessarily by the actions of Jamie (Whincup).” “Scotty (Scott McLaughlin) came and apologised. He’s a good bloke and didn’t mean to do what he did. I can see that,” “As I’ve said, I don’t think any of it would have happened if Jamie (Whincup) hadn’t slowed done so much. We’re just gutted because it would have been the perfect way to end not only our relationship with the Holden Racing Team, winning Bathurst, but also our last race with Garth Tander as well.” “It’s a shame because you don’t want to see races won or lost like that. When you’ve got three drivers all fighting for the win at a place like Mount Panorama, with 10 laps to go, we want clean racing. That’s what we were giving out and what you expect in return.”
Post race, Australian motor racing legend John Bowe believed Whincup was “robbed” of a Bathurst 1000 title as the controversy following Sunday’s race continued to rage. The Whincup camp received support from two-time Bathurst winner Bowe, who issued a statement on Facebook backing the appeal, calling Whincup an “extremely fair driver”.
Triple Eight lodge protest
The appeal against the penalty along with a $10,000 fee was submitted by Red Bull Racing Australia Team Manager Mark Dutton to the CAMS Stewards of the meeting. The crux of Triple Eight’s appeal centred on an argument that levying the time penalty was inconsistent with the system of punishment that had been explained to teams that year, which included three levels of offence and the ability to redress an error by handing back the position gained by the passing move. Triple Eight owner Roland Dane told supercars.com. “We have protested the 15 seconds because the penalty they gave is completely inconsistent with what we have been given as the way the rules will be enforced this year,” Dane said. “It is questionable whether Jamie (Whincup) was guilty of any crime when you actually look at the incident with McLaughlin. The stewards have confirmed that the 15 seconds penalty is nothing to do with the aftermath. That wasn’t Jamie’s fault. It was only to do with the incident with McLaughlin.”
The Supercars National Court of Appeal
On 18 October, the Supercars National Court of Appeal's dismissal of Whincup's appeal on Tuesday night ensured provisional winner Holden's Will Davison and co-driver Jonathon Webb's grip on the Peter Brock Trophy tightened. However, Whincup's Red Bull Racing Australia have a week to decide whether to take their case to the FIA International Court of Appeal. Triple Eight Race Engineering entry Red Bull Racing Australia appealed the severity of the time penalty but it took just 50 minutes for the three-man Supercars Court of Appeal panel to dismiss it.
Career results
Supercars Championship results
(Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Bathurst 1000 results
Year | Team | Car | Co-driver | Position | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | Garry Rogers Motorsport | Holden Commodore VX | DNF | 72 | |
2003 | Garry Rogers Motorsport | Holden Commodore VY | 19th | 146 | |
2004 | Perkins Engineering | Holden Commodore VX | 9th | 160 | |
2005 | Tasman Motorsport | Holden Commodore VZ | 2nd | 161 | |
2006 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Ford Falcon BA | 1st | 161 | |
2007 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Ford Falcon BF | 1st | 161 | |
2008 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Ford Falcon BF | 1st | 161 | |
2009 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Ford Falcon FG | 5th | 161 | |
2010 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VE | 2nd | 161 | |
2011 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VE | 21st | 160 | |
2012 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VE | 1st | 161 | |
2013 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VF | 2nd | 161 | |
2014 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VF | 5th | 161 | |
2015 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VF | 18th | 161 | |
2016 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VF | 11th | 161 | |
2017 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore VF | 20th | 124 | |
2018 | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore ZB | 10th | 161 |
Complete Bathurst 12 Hour results
Year | Team | Co-Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | Ferrari 488 GT3 | AP | 290 | 1st | 1st | ||
2018 | Mercedes-AMG GT3 | APP | 271 | 2nd | 2nd |
References
- ↑ MyGale Formula Ford Racing History
- ↑ Jamie Whincup V8supercars Profile Archived 15 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ "Motorsport: Whincup clinches back-to-back titles". The New Zealand Herald. 6 December 2009. Retrieved 6 October 2011.
- ↑ Tander breaks Whincup's winning streak
- ↑ Barnett, Josh (4 December 2011). "TeamVodafone driver Jamie Whincup wins 2011 V8 Supercars title over Craig Lowndes by 35 points". SPEED. Fox Sports. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
- ↑ "Teams' Championship Secured". Bigpond Sport. V8 Supercars. 22 November 2011. Archived from the original on 25 November 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
- ↑ Jamie Whincup claims fifth V8 Supercars title Archived 24 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ "Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour 2017 - Result of 12 Hour" (PDF). raceresults.nu. February 6, 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2017. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
External links
- The Official Online Community of Jamie Whincup
- Jamie Whincup career summary at DriverDB.com
- The MySpace of Jamie Whincup