CRAIG Lowndes is an Australian motorsport legend.
A seven-time winner of the Bathurst 1000 – in 1996, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018 – Lowndes has transcended the sport and remains one of its biggest stars of the modern era.
A three-time Australian Touring Car/Supercars Champion in 1996, 1998 and 1999 with the Holden Racing Team, Lowndes made his debut in a V8 touring car in a HRT Commodore at the 1994 Sandown 500.
The 1993 Australian Formula Ford Champion, Lowndes then burst into the nation’s consciousness by finishing a close second in the 1994 Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst in a HRT Commodore with Brad Jones.
He joined the team full-time at the very end of 1995, the year he’d become the youngest Bathurst 1000 pole sitter in history.
Lowndes enjoyed a dream run in 1996, clinching the Australian Touring Car Championship and winning the Sandown 500 and AMP Bathurst 1000 with Greg Murphy.
Lowndes moved to International Formula 3000 open wheeler racing with RSM Marko in 1997, however the season proved to be difficult and he returned to Australia to rejoin the HRT for 1998.
He picked up where he left off and won the championship in both of the following two years, 1998 and 1999.
Lowndes left HRT at the end of 2000 amid a blaze of publicity, landing at Gibson Motorsport with a Ford contract in 2001. He spent two years with the team, the second of which came under the 00 Motorsport banner.
Lowndes moved to the newly-formed Ford Performance Racing for 2003 and finished runner-up in the Bathurst 1000 with Glenn Seton in both ’03 and 2004.
He moved to the Brisbane-based Triple Eight Race Engineering in 2005 and has been part of the furniture at the team ever since, retiring from full-time Supercars racing in 2018, though remaining with the team in an endurance co-driver and wildcard driver role.
In that time Lowndes won the Bathurst 1000 three times in a row with Jamie Whincup (2006, 2007, 2008), once with Mark Skaife (2010) and twice with Steve Richards (2015, 2018).
He also won the Sandown 500 four times – 2005 with Yvan Muller, 2007 with Jamie Whincup, 2012 with Warren Luff and 2019 with Whincup.
Lowndes and Skaife teamed up to win the Phillip Island 500 two years in a row in 2010 and 2011 when the seaside circuit hosted the pre-Bathurst 500-kilometre V8 Supercar endurance race.
Thesedays Lowndes is a regular part of the Repco Supercars Championship television broadcast line-up and continues to race in selected events.
Lowndes also has enjoyed success at Bathurst in the 12 Hour GT race. He won it in 2014 and 2017 driving Ferraris and finished runner-up in an Audi in 2011.
Last Updated – January 10, 2024
