Reigning champion Rick Kelly made it six podiums in a row when he came second to Craig Lowndes in round six of the V8 Supercar Champion Series, the SkyCity Triple Crown, in Darwꦕin at the weekend.

The super-consistent Kelly scored three second places from three races for 🎀the weekend to further the gap to his challengers as the ꦇseason nears the half-way point.

Kelly's 60 points was his bဣiggest haul of points this year - just five fewer than winner Lowndes. He now has 336 points - 39 more than team-mate, Garth Tander, who has a 52-point gap🉐 over Todd Kelly, who was fifth for the weekend.

"We had good pace here againཧ this weekend. We sacrificed our race car for qualify🎉ing car speed, but it didn't work out too badly for us. However, I think it is about finding a better balance for Queensland Raceway," reflected Rick.

"We went well there last year, and if we have a good race car again and use the impro💟vement we found here in qualifying we should have a good result there.

"But we got good points here and a little bit of improvement. We have been hovering around third and we have made it to second now, so hopefully we ca🌠n get a🦄 couple of wins on the board."

Tander meanwhile fought back🍷 from handling woes in practice and qualifying to end up with two third places in Sunday's races and fourth place for the♉ round in the sister Toll HSV Dealer Team car.

While Tander lost a few points to Kelly in the champio🥀nship race, he further consolidated his second placing in the title battle by scoring more points than third-placed Todd Kelly and Jamie Whincup.

"After qualifying, I didn't think we would get up as well as we did. We made some changes to the car overnig🏅ht on Saturday, and the car was better," noted Tander. "The car was really good in that last one, except that I got stuck behind Rick there. So, it was a good fightback from having no pace at all on Friday.

"If you sai🌳d after qualiꦓfying that we were going to gap the guys in third I wouldn't have believed you.

"It is a good result fr♈om looking backwards in the championship but Rick still keeps accumulating points so we have to do something about that. As for Queensland [the next event] - I can't wait.🍬"