Whincup and Dumbrell dominate Sandown 500

JAMIE WHINCUP and Paul Dumbrell were unchallenged during 161 laps of running at Sandown to clinch the opening race of the Supercars’ enduro season in dominant form.

The duo led home Red Bull Holden Racing Team teammates Shane van Gisbergen and Earl Bamber who finished second, while Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards made it a clean sweep of the podium for Triple Eight Race Engineering.

A second place in the 500-kilometre race helped van Gisbergen extend his championship lead, while earning Bamber a podium for his Supercars’ debut.

Whincup and Dumbrell were untouchable throughout the race, leading from the start, and only conceding first place during the pit stop cycles. The duo lapped all but the top 12 finishers during the race.

It wasn’t as easy for the second and third placed finishers, who started in the middle of the pack following a pair of chaotic qualifying races on Saturday. Bamber and Richards worked hard in the early portion of the race, handing their cars over to van Gisbergen and Lowndes inside the top five.

The podium sweep is the first for any team in Sandown 500 history.

Scott McLaughlin and Alex Premat finished in fourth place, holding off polesitters David Reynolds and Luke Youlden who couldn’t pass the DJR Team Penske car despite a late-race pace advantage.

McLaughlin stated he and Premat "got properly smoked" by the Triple Eight trio.

"If it wasn't for the safety car, they probably would have lapped the whole field," he said following the race.

Ford teams began to air worries about an aero disadvantage to the Holden ZB Commodore over the weekend. The new Commodore appeared to have a straight-line speed advantage over the ageing FG X Falcon, which gave the Holden crews the upper hand on Sandown's pair of long straights.

With Bathurst having a similar focus on top speed, the Ford crews will be scratching their heads looking for a solution before the next race.

There were a number of impressive drives through the field, in particular Garth Tander and Chris Pither, who dropped to dead last following contact on the first lap. The pair then put their heads down and pushed on, finishing in ninth place by the end of the race.

Finishing in second place allowed van Gisbergen to extend his championship lead over McLaughlin, with 55 points now separating the pair.

Whincup is still third in the points’ standings, with a 338 deficit to his teammate heading to Mount Panorama.

The next race of the season is the Bathurst 1000 on October 7.