Joy of Sixth: Whincup finally savours record V8 crown

Jamie Whincup

Whincup had already secured an unbeatable lead in the championship heading into the weekend’s races in Sydney but said he’d been unable to properly celebrate until finally finishing up this weekend.

The 31-year-old champion elect made sure he didn’t just coast it in either, his fourth-place finish in Sunday’s race before its cancellation ensuring he won the championship by a higher margin than in any of his previous five victories.

Whincup still found himself behind Sunday’s race winner Shane van Gisbergen, who leapfrogged Mark Winterbottom into second on the championship standings, while Garth Tander and James Courtney made up the podium.

Returning star Marcos Ambrose may have endured a tough Saturday in his first race since crossing back from Nascars, but he improved markedly on Sunday and secured a 16th-placed finish.

Whincup, though, said it was nice to finally take some time and enjoy his achievement.

“We’re very good at bottling our emotions,” he told the V8 Supercars website.

“We’ve had so many good things happen this year, we’ve had some big wins at places like Townsville and a huge win on the Gold Coast.

“You probably wonder what we do on a Sunday night. We just go home and go to bed, have a couple of bottles of water, go do a recovery swim in the morning and off you go again.

“You bottle all of that emotion until moments like these where you reflect on what the year has been and all the good things that have happened.”

And, Whincup doesn’t appear done yet as he aims to set the championship record bar very high indeed.

“I know this moment won’t last forever, I’m in a very critical and amazing part of my life - it could be the best part of my life, I’m not sure,” Whincup said.

“But I’ll try come out again next year and try and do what I’ve done in the last three years, keep backing up, trying to improve and riding this massive roller coaster for as long as I can.”

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