Jamie Whincup

V8 Supercar Driver


Caption = Whincup at an press conference.
Name = Jamie Whincup
Nationality = flagicon|AUS Australian
Car number = 88
Team = TeamVodafone
Championships = 0
Races = 64
Wins = 8
Podiums = 16
Poles = 0
2007 Championship position = 2nd (623 pts)

Jamie Whincup (born February 6,1983 in Melbourne, Victoria) is a V8 Supercar driver for TeamVodafone.

His racing career started at the age of 7 in go-karts. From 1991 through to 1997, he won numerous Rookie and Junior titles at a state level. 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.

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. After finishing third in his debut year, he jumped to Sonic Motorsport 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.

After completing a full year of V8 Supercar racing with GRM, he was replaced by the more experienced Cameron McConville and was left without a full-time drive for 2004. He was later contracted by Castrol Perkins Racing to drive in the two endurance events.

He 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.

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.

2007

In 2007, Whincup began a mentoring role as part of Team Vodafone'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 Surfer's Paradise for the Indy 300with 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 the Apple Isle with a dominant race 1 win on Saturday, but a slow stop in race 2 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 December 1-2 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 a nail biting 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, Jamie was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal, deemed to be the "Best and Fairest" award for V8 Supercars.

Career Results

*9th, Supercheap Auto 1000 at Bathurst, 2004
*3rd, Betta Electrical Sandown 500, 2005
*2nd, Supercheap Auto 1000 at Bathurst, 2005
*Winner, 2006, Round 1, V8 Supercar Championship (Clipsal 500)
*3rd, Betta Electrical Sandown 500, 2006
*Winner, 2006, Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000
*3rd, 2007, Round 3, V8 Supercar Championship (Pukekohe, NZ)
*Winner, 2007, Round 4, V8 Supercar Championship (Winton)
*2nd, 2007, Round 7, V8 Supercar Championship (Queensland Raceway)
*Winner of the 2007 Sandown 500 with Craig Lowndes
*Winner of the 2007 Bathurst 1000 with Craig Lowndes
*Winner, 2007, Round 13, V8 Supercar Championship (Symmons Plains)
*3rd, 2007, Round 14, V8 Supercar Championship (Phillip Island)
*1st, 2008, Round 1, V8 Supercar Championship (Adelaide, Clipsal 500)
*2nd, 2008, Round 9, Phillip Island 500 with Craig Lowndes

External links

* [http://www.jamiewhincup.com.au/ The Official Online Community of Jamie Whincup]
* [http://www.teamvodafone.com.au/ Team Vodafone]
* [http://www.myspace.com/jamiewhincup/ The MySpace of Jamie Whincup]
* [http://jamiewhincup.blogspot.com/ Jamie Whincup 888 Report Card (Fan Blog Site)]