Craig Lowndes
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Craig Lowndes (born June 21, 1974) is an Australian motor racing driver. As with many other successful drivers, Lowndes started racing karts at age 9.
After converting to racing cars, Lowndes won the 1993 Australian Formula Ford Championship (in an older car with minimal sponsorship), and third in the Formula Ford Festival in England that year.
In 1994, Lowndes stepped up to Formula Brabham, again in an older car.
Lowndes started racing V8 Supercars in the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 in 1994 and 1995 with the Holden Racing Team. His first full season was 1996, winning the championship at his first attempt, and also winning both Sandown and Bathurst with teammate Greg Murphy.
In 1997, Lowndes went to Europe and competed with the RSM Marko Team in the FIA Formula 3000 series with limited success. He failed to find the budget to compete a second year which is generally required to excel in the category.
Lowndes returned to Australia and won the V8 Supercar championship in 1998 and 1999, becoming only the second driver to win consecutive championships.
But in 2001, Lowndes jumped ship to join the Ford family with the Gibson Motorsport Team. During his time with this team, although not winning many races and doing as well as many fans would have liked, Lowndes still garnered an admiration from fans for his ever smiling attitude towards his racing despite all the setbacks of unreliability with this team. Midway through his tenure with this team, the Gibson Motorsport was renamed to 00 Motorsport after a change of management. Lowndes's black and silver 00 AU Ford Falcon was commonly referred to as the "green-eyed monster" for the green headlights cover.
The team folded at the end of 2002 and he switched to Ford Performance Racing Team in 2003. The first year for the team looked very promising with one round win for Lowndes and a second placing at Barthurst. But technical problems, especially constant engine failures, plagued the team for the whole of 2004. Despite the much publicised problems, Craig still managed to partner another Ford hero, Glenn Seton, to repeat their second placing at the Barthurst 1000. (they were also partnered in 2003).
2005 and again Lowndes switched teams, this time to the Triple 8 Race Engineering Team Betta Electrical.
This move saw him regain his former position at the pinnacle of V8 Supercar racing where he had the most round victories, the most pole positions, and claimed second in the V8 Supercar championship, in his most successful season since switching to Ford. At the Bathurst 1000 he qualified on pole and led the race until glancing a wall at Reid Park and damaging the rear axle. He was sidelined in the pits for a number of laps before rejoining well down. His windscreen was hit by a wheel from another car which had come loose. Again he spent time in the pits for repairs. At the end of the year, Lowndes was awarded a string of awards including the Fans Number 1 Favourite Driver, Top Driver Award (as voted by his peers) and the coveted Barry Sheene Medal.
2006 will be Lowndes' 10th Anniversary competing in the Australian V8 Supercars Championship. After the strong finish to close 2005 by coming in a close second behind championship winner Russell Ingall, many are touting Lowndes to finally win the championship for Ford, which will be his first since he defected from Holden.
He has been married to Natalie for a number of years and they have two children. They live on a rural property on the outskirts of Brisbane.
| Teams contesting the 2006 V8 Supercar Championship Series | |||||||||
| Stone Brothers Racing | Holden Racing Team | Tasman Motorsport | Ford Performance Racing | Jack Daniels Racing | WPS Racing | ||||
| 1 Russell Ingall 4 James Courtney | 2 Mark Skaife 22 Todd Kelly | 3 Jason Richards 23 Andrew Jones | 5 Mark Winterbottom 6 Jason Bright | 7 Steven Richards 11 Paul Dumbrell | 8 Max Wilson 10 Jason Bargwanna | ||||
| Team BOC | Toll HSV Dealer Team | Dick Johnson Racing | Paul Cruickshank Racing | Fujitsu Racing | Garry Rogers Motorsport | ||||
| John Bowe 14 Brad Jones | 15 Rick Kelly 16 Garth Tander | Steven Johnson 18 Will Davison | 20 Marcus Marshall | 25 Warren Luff 26 Jose Fernandez | 33 Lee Holdsworth 34 Dean Canto | ||||
| Team Sirromet Wines | Supercheap Auto Racing | Autobarn Racing | Team Betta Electrical | Team Kiwi Racing | |||||
| 39 Fabian Coulthard | 50 Cameron McConville 51 Greg Murphy | Steve Owen | 88 Jamie Whincup 888 Craig Lowndes | 021 Paul Radisich
| |||||
External links
- [Craig Lowndes Official Web Site]
- [Craig Lowndes Story (1999)]
- [Craig Lowndes 888 Report Card (Fan Blog Site)]
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