The Fords have dominated over the Queen's Birthday long weekend with an all-blue Midas 400 podium at Sandown International Raceway, Melbourne for round five of the V8 Supercar Championship Series.

The V8 Supercars will co-headline the Gold Coast Indy 300 alongside the IndyCar Series when the four day festival hits Surfers Paradise on October 23-26.

Jamie Whincup steered his TeamVodafone Falcon to the top step of the podium, while Mark Winterbottom and his Orrcon FPR Falcon claimed second and the championship lead with James Courntey taking third overall.

The first Holden home in the round standings was last year's Gold Coast Indy 300 V8 Supercars podium-getter Russell Ingall, just behind 19 year old Shane Van Gisbergen who was fourth, while Whincup's team-mate Craig Lowndes was sixth.

After Whincup won the weekend's first race ahead of Winterbottom and Lowndes, TeamVodafone experienced the full gamet of motor racing emotions on Monday with Whincup racing to the round win in the final race while race two winner Lowndes was forced to watch the final 39-Lap race from the pit garage after his Ford Falcon broke a rear axle on its way to the start grid.

Lowndes won the second race ahead of Van Gisbergen and Whincup to be tied on points with his teammate going into the final race.

As Lowndes watched on, Whincup flew the TeamVodafone flag, and while a slow start on the damp side of track threatened to hamper his near perfect weekend it wasn’t long before the 25 year old had gained control of the race.

Whincup took the chequered flag more than two seconds ahead of Winterbottom and Courtney, with the final top three race results replicating the round results to be third in the championship behind Winterbottom and the winner of the V8 Supercar event at the Gold Coast Indy 300, Garth Tander.

“That was an amazing team effort,” said Whincup.

“We almost had the perfect weekend after getting pole and winning yesterday, but I cost myself some points in the first race today when I ran wide and slipped back to third.

“This is great for our championship we have really closed the gap to Garth (Tander) and have clawed some good points back on Mark (Winterbottom)."

The next round of the V8 Supercar Championship will be held at Hidden Valley in Darwin on July 4-6, which will be round six of a 14 round championship that takes in two international rounds (NZ and Bahrain) as well as the Gold Coast Indy 300 in October.


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