Craig Lowndes
Craig Andrew Lowndes is an Australian racing car driver in the Repco Supercars Championship racing for Triple Eight Race Engineering. He is also a TV commentator.
Lowndes is a three-time V8 Supercar champion, a five-time Barry Sheene Medalist, and a seven-time winner of Australia's most prestigious motor race, the Bathurst 1000 and two-time winner of the Bathurst 12 Hour.
On 6 July 2018, Lowndes announced his intention to step down from full-time driving at the end of the 2018 season, continuing as a co-driver.
Among all his other achievements, Lowndes has claimed nine 500 kilometre V8 Supercar/ATCC endurance titles. He is also the first driver in ATCC/V8SC history to win 100 races and holds the record for the most Bathurst 1000 podiums with 14.
On 11 June 2012, Lowndes received the Medal of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his success in motorsport and contribution to the broader Australian community, "particularly through road safety education programs and charitable organisations."
In 2018 Lowndes was also recognised in the prestigious Australian Institute of Sport Performance Awards, as the ABC Sports Personality of the Year. On 16 March 2019, Lowndes was inducted into the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame.
Lowndes also voices Conrod in Roary the Racing Car in both the UK and US.
Racing career
Lowndes began his racing career at age nine, driving go-karts and riding dirt bikes.Early career
He moved up to race cars in 1991, driving a Van Diemen in the Motorcraft Formula Ford "Driver to Europe" Series. Despite the car being several years old and receiving minimal sponsorship, Lowndes shot to almost immediate success. Lowndes won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 1993 which qualified him for the Formula Ford Festival in England that same year, where he finished third. Lowndes moved up to Australia's top rank of open wheel racing being Formula Brabham in 1994. His success in Formula Brabham driving an ageing Cheetah Mk9 against much more modern cars was rewarded with the Australian Silver Star.Holden Racing Team
By this time Lowndes had been added to the Holden Racing Teams testing crew. He looked sufficiently promising in testing that Lowndes was drafted into the No. 015 Commodore with Brad Jones for the 1994 Sandown 500. It was expected to be a one-off performance as Rickard Rydell from the BTCC was to join the team for Bathurst. Rydell was forced to stay home for family reasons and after his impressive debut at Sandown, HRT team manager Jeff Grech had no hesitation in giving Rydell's seat to the young Lowndes.After a gruelling double-stint by Jones, Lowndes began the final stint of the race as the premier challenger to the DJR Falcon of John Bowe which had dominated the race. With eleven laps to go Lowndes stunned the touring car establishment by overtaking Bowe on the outside of Griffins Bend. Bowe retook a lap later and Lowndes was forced to back off in the closing laps but second was an impressive achievement for a rookie driver. Lowndes won fans in pit lane when he later admitted that his passing move on Bowe was simply a case of missing his brake marker.
It would be almost a year before Lowndes would find himself back behind the driver's seat. Having been retained as HRT's official test driver for 1995, Lowndes was nevertheless forced to sit on the sidelines as HRT persisted with their experienced line-up of Tomas Mezera and Peter Brock. At the season ending endurance events, Lowndes was finally back behind the wheel and immediately impressed by taking his maiden pole position at the Sandown 500. His race would end in the gravel trap at Turn 1 after a spirited battle with veteran Glenn Seton, but the rookie would prove his speed was no flash in the pain just a few short weeks later when he stormed to pole at the Bathrust 1000. His Holden Racing Team Commodore would DNF early on in the race when both HRT cars experienced oil pressure problems and eventual engine failure. HRT had seen enough however, and for the 1996 season Lowndes replaced Tomas Mezera full-time in the team.
In his first full season as an Australian Touring Car driver, Lowndes duly won the championship by 79 points over reigning champion John Bowe. He also won both the Sandown and Bathurst races with teammate Greg Murphy, a rare treble. His Bathurst 1000 victory made him the youngest winner of the race at the time and with Murphy, the youngest ever driver pairing to win the Bathurst 1000. His unprecedented success prompted team owner Tom Walkinshaw to sign him to a 10-year management deal:
"We signed a deal earlier this year to get me overseas in 1997. Under the terms of the arrangement, he has got seven years to put me into F1. It's pretty rare for a young Australian to get a deal like this, although it's not so unusual in Europe for young drivers to get picked up at an early age."
Formula 3000
At the end of 1996, Lowndes left Australia for Europe to pursue his F1 dream with Walkinshaw. A successful F3 test prompted both Lowndes and Walkinshaw to skip the category altogether in favour of the heavier yet faster F3000. Super Nova team boss David Sears was impressed with Lowndes, but his insistence on a 2-year commitment wasn't to Walkinshaw's liking and ultimately led to the Scotsman signing Lowndes to the RSM Marko Team in the 1997 International Formula 3000 Championship. Lowndes would partner the highly rated Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.Qualifying an impressive 6th on debut at Silverstone, Lowndes debut season in the category ultimately proved underwhelming, his best finish of 4th in Enna paling in comparison to Montoya's three wins and 2nd in the championship. Commenting on his time at RSM Marko, Lowndes would describe the experience as markedly different from his time at HRT:
"There was one engineer who engineered both cars and drove the car very differently to what I did. They basically made the cars the same and very similar in set-ups and I just had to deal with it."
Despite his struggles, Lowndes was determined to carry on, but with sponsors reluctant to fund another season he duly returned to Australia and HRT.
Australian return
On his return to Australia, Lowndes again won the 1997 Sandown 500 for HRT, partnered by New Zealander Greg Murphy. In 1998, he resumed his full-time race seat with the Holden Racing Team alongside new teammate and former champion Mark Skaife. Picking up where he left off, Lowndes went on to win his second consecutive Championship.In 1998, Lowndes also flirted with a potential trans-pacific move to the American CART series. Although he tested with Team KOOL Green's Indy Lights outfit, Lowndes eventually decided to stay in Australia.
A 3rd title would follow in 1999 with Lowndes finishing off the podium only once in the first 18 races. In the first full year of campaigning the VT Commodore, Lowndes had already amassed a large lead by the time the series arrived for Round 8 at Calder Park Raceway. Following a win in the first sprint race, a poor start by Lowndes saw him bogged down in the field and subsequently tapped by another car which resulted in a spectacular roll over, momentarily sending the car airborne and into an embankment. The car was declared a write-off and Lowndes was fortunate to only suffer a knee injury. Despite missing the following round at Symmons Plains Raceway due to the injury, Lowndes still went on to clinch the Championship at the Bathurst Classic finishing second in the final round of the season.
Despite Lowndes being favourite to win a 4th title in 2000, he struggled with reliability and consistency throughout the season and finished 3rd in the championship, behind teammate Mark Skaife and Garth Tander, with three round wins including the Queensland 500.
Ford
Dissatisfaction within HRT triggered Lowndes move to a new team, causing a stir among race fans when he jumped ship from Holden to arch-rival manufacturer Ford, signing with a team headed up by former driver Fred Gibson. This partnership lasted for two years in which time Lowndes finished 7th and 11th in the championship. The relationship proved unsuccessful due to reliability issues with the Ford Falcon race car. Despite the setbacks, Lowndes garnered an admiration from fans for his positive attitude and demeanour. Gibson Motor Sport was renamed to 00 Motorsport after a change of management. Lowndes's black and silver Falcon was affectionately referred to as the "green-eyed monster" for the bright green covers over the headlights.Ford Performance Racing
Lowndes signed with the factory-sponsored Ford Performance Racing team for the 2003 season. The season saw Lowndes improve from the previous 2 seasons and managed a 5th place in the championship including his first round win since the Queensland 500 in 2000 and the first with Ford. The season proved inconsistent and reliability issues started setting in throughout the season causing Lowndes to miss out on a chance for the title. 2004 would be Lowndes worst championship year, reliability became a big issue in the FPR garage throughout the season. Lowndes finished 20th in the championship, causing him to leave the team at the end of 2004.Triple Eight Race Engineering
Lowndes joined Triple Eight Race Engineering in 2005 and enjoyed his most successful season since switching to Ford. He had the most round victories and the most pole positions of any driver in the championship, and finished second in the final standings behind champion Russell Ingall. At the Bathurst 1000 that year, after qualifying on pole, he spent much time in the pits after two separate incidents which severely damaged his Falcon including a wheel that smashed into his windscreen.At the V8 Gala Awards, Lowndes was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal, an award akin to Most Valuable Player which is voted on by a team of panellists from the Australian media, motorsport magazines, television commentators and former drivers. This award was first introduced in 2003, in honour of the late Barry Sheene.