Performer of the Month: Craig Lowndes

Craig Lowndes may have missed out on the 2011 V8 Supercars crown to Triple 8 Holden team-mate Jason Whincup, but the 37-year-old did just enough to earn the December Castrol EDGE Performer of the Month title.

Lowndes’ competition came almost exclusively from the V8 field, as the 2012 season reached its final weekend, a double header at Sydney on 3-4 December.

Lowndes ran out as the highest points scorer over the two races courtesy of one victory and one second place, which was also enough to secure him a maiden Performer of the Month crown.

It was not quite enough to displace Whincup at the summit of the championship however, with an agonising 35 points all that separated the two drivers at the season’s end.

Mark Winterbottom, fifth in the first race and victorious in the second, proved Lowndes’ stiffest competition over December.

A brace of podiums helped Shane van Gisbergen finish third in the monthly chart, ahead of Michael Caruso and Will Davison.

Newly crowned champion Jamie Whincup did just enough to hold Lowndes at bay, as misfortune in both races prevented him from finishing higher than 20th and eighth. He placed seventh in the December rankings.

Ranking Year

Lowndes’ can trace his racing career back to the age of nine, when he first raced in go karts.

He soon progressed into single seaters, meeting with success in 1993, when he clinched the national Formula Ford title, and again in 1994 when he triumphed in the Formula Holden Silver Star class.

The latter success would prove instrumental to Lowndes’ future as it earned the attention of the Holden Racing Team, who handed Lowndes rides in various endurance races. He was quick to repay the gesture, finishing second at Bathurst that year.

Two years later, in 1996, he joined the team on a permanent basis and was an instant success as he became the youngest ever winner Australian Touring Car champion. He also won the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000.

1997 heralded a change of direction as Lowndes moved into an F3000 championship won by Ricardo Zonta.

Lowndes fared less well, and the following year opted to move back to Australian Touring Cars, winning the title at his first attempt.

The championship was rebranded under its current Australian V8 Supercars guide in 199, but the change did nothing to halt Lowndes momentum as he once again triumphed for HRT, picking up 12 wins and 28 podiums along the way.

The win count reached double figures again in 2000, before Lowndes made a controversial switch from Holden to Ford machinery for 2001.

The move did not prove an categorical success. Wins still followed in most seasons – 2004 excepted – but a title challenge often proved out of Lowndes’ grasp. He did however win his second Bathurst 1000 in 2006, a year in which he also finished second in the championship.

2007 saw another change of direction as Lowndes joined Triple 8, with whom he won six times in his first year. He has won at least twice every year since.

He has also racked up an impressive tally of wins at Bathurst, triumphing in 2007, 2008 – what was an historic third straight win – and 2010. Since 2007 he has also never finished lower than fourth in the championship, even if the  title has thus far eluded him.