Jamie Whincup

Jamie Whincup
Nationality	Australian
Born	6 February 1983 (age 33) Melbourne, Victoria
V8 Supercar Record
Car number	88
Current team	Triple Eight Race Engineering
Series championships	6 (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Races	400
Race wins	100
Podium finishes	190
Pole positions	71

Jamie Whincup (born 6 February 1983 in Melbourne, Victoria) is an Australian auto racing driver, who competes in the Supercars Championship, driving for Red Bull Racing Australia. He is a six-time V8 Supercar champion and four-time Bathurst 1000 winner.

Early career

Whincup's interest in motor racing commenced at the age of 7 when his father purchased him a go-kart.^[1] From 1991 through to 1997, he won numerous Rookie and Junior titles at a state level.^[2] He was crowned KartOz Magazine's Karter of the Year and won the FMK Senior Intercontinental A Karting Series in 1998 and the Formula A Series in 1999 before progressing to Formula Ford in 2000, though he claims he had no ambition of turning racing into a 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

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 team-mate Jason Richards after leading late in the race.

Triple Eight Race Engineering

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 team-mate 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.

In 2007, 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.

Whincup leads the field at the 2014 Sydney NRMA 500.

Jamie Whincup took his 100th championship race win at the Sydney SuperSprint.

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.^[5]

In 2010, following the team's switch to Holden VE Commodores, Whincup won the first four races of the season^[6] 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 fellow team-mate Craig Lowndes by 35 points.^[7] Triple Eight Race Engineering's stellar season earned them 1st in the Teams Championship, their second Teams Championship with Holden.^[8]

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.

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.^[9]

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.

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 team-mate 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.

In 2016, he became the second driver in Supercars/ATCC history to win 100 races, the other being Triple Eight teammate Craig Lowndes.

Career results

Whincup celebrates on the podium of the 2008 Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

The Holden VE Commodore of Whincup at the 2012 Clipsal 500 Adelaide

The Holden VF Commodore of Whincup at the 2013 Clipsal 500 Adelaide

The Holden VF Commodore of Whincup at the 2014 Pre season test day

Bathurst 1000 results

References

External links

• The Official Online Community of Jamie Whincup
• Jamie Whincup on Twitter
  
• Jamie Whincup career summary at DriverDB.com
• The MySpace of Jamie Whincup