Mark Winterbottom put in yet another dominant display for Ford Performance Racing in 'enemy territory' on🐼 Sunday to extend his lead in the V8 Sup🍨ercar Championship Series

Winterbottom won the City of🔯 Ipswich 400 just south of Brisbane ahead of✃ veteran Russell Ingall and James Courtney.

He was a runaway winner in the end, winning races two and three to 🦂consolidate the top of the table,ꦗ having taken second spot in race 1. He is now 86 points up on Jamie Whincup - 1572 points versus 1486.

"I said on Friday and Saturday how much we've gained as a team and to come up here to actually make points is a great effort," Winterওbottom s꧃aid. "We have gone well in the season so far, have got points ticking over and are still going for race wins at the time."

But Winterbottom was pressured by the resurgent Ingallm, who on the ജsurface appears to have driven Supercheap Auto Racing into the front end of the field and Courtney, who after more than two years in the sport now has a race win to g𝐆o with his eight podiums.

"He press🐷ured a fair bit and had a great run on the back straight. I keep seeing him in the mirror and I could see his face through the window - he had the race face on. It was quite a good battle," Winterbottom said of the battle that ended when Ingaꦐll had a brief off-track excursion.

Ingall held his nerve and used his experience to take 💛second in the last race🧸 to come in second overall ahead of his former Stone Brothers Racing team-mate James Courtney.

"Ultra pleased," Ingall said. "It was good. We ran out a little bit towards the end. We changed the car as I said to the guys we might as well use each race as a test session and see what it's going to do. When it came out of the pit stop💖 it was really strong so I thought I'd give Mark a bit of a push along.

"I had a bit of an excursion at the end there, ran out of rear tyres and talent. The guys told me I still had seconꦚd for the round so I couldn't have done much more𒆙 anyway. Apart from the end of the races everything else was perfect."

Courtney recovered from a poor second race to pull thr🦄ough the field in the final race of the weekend and take back third for the event.

"We went a little bit the wrong way with set-up so🎀 we had to fight pretty hard to get back up. We engineered it backwards and went back to sixth so we went the other way," Courtne꧟y said.

Winterbottom got Courtney from the start in R2 and that wasn't the end of the problems for yesterday's winner. He first succumbed to Toll Holden ꦑRacing Team's Garth Tander on lap one and on the very next lap Ingall and Jim Beam's Will Davison.

Within three laps Courtney was in fifth. It appeared there were 🌄😼some losses with his car with the changes they had made overnight compared with the other front-runners.

Further down the o♔rder Tander took fourth spot overall - having finished in P4 in all t🗹hree races.

Will ꦅDavison was fifth for J꧙im Beam Racing, after another consistent weekend in his Ford Falcon: "Obviously a podium would have been nice at our home track, but I have again scored a good amount of points and we continue to learn more about the new control tyre," said Davison.

"We set out to make sure we qualified well and to finish top five for the week🌞end is a very solid performance and a credit to the team as we still have some issues with improving tyre life."

Jamie Whincup was next up climbing six spots in race 2 to finish third. Although he couldn't repeat that in the final race after an error𒁏 early on, he still scored𒀰 good points bringing his Team Vodafone machine home in P6.

"After our positive result this morning I was really looking forward to Race 3," Whincܫup explained. "The car showed real promise in overtaking and I thought I would be able to challenge the leading cars. I made a silly mistake on lap 4 though which slid me back to seventh.

"Then after my pit-stop I never really had the opportunity to challenge anybody properly. We have sti🐈ll gained 210 points however, which keeps me within striking distance of the Mark (Winterbottom) and Garth (Tander)."

Mark Skaife was seventh, with Ford♈ Performance Racing's Steven Richards eighth, followed by Fabian Coulthard and Cameron McConville.

"My race weekend has been a bit disappointing. The car clearly had goo♍d pace and as the fuel was going off it was just getting better and better. It seems that every time we make prog🉐ress we end up having to recover from one situation or another," said Richards, who was involved in a racing accident with Skaife in race 2, when the Holden man out-braked himself and went into the back of the FPR Falcon.

"With the Skaife,🍰 I couldn't see what was going on behind me. All I knowཧ is I was on the inside of him and then got a shove from behind. You're already on the edge through that corner so any contact will turn you around."

McConville also had a fight with Skaife: "Our car was more con🎃sistent today on the rear tyres. We ha🌃d an awesome pit stop and passed Dumbrell and Skaife in race 2 to finish ninth. The top ten is where my car should be," he added.

"In the third rওace I battled with Skaife from the start and after the stop. Unfortunately I locked-up the right front into Turn 6 and lost 5 spots. I got back past Steven Johnson but the damage was done. Overall though a top ten is go꧒od result."

Of the rest Lee Holdsworth came in eleventh, while Craig Lowndes completed the top 12 having fought his way back up from a lowly 28th in race 1. Indeed Lowndes gained 16 places in race 2 and then finꦜished 14th in race 3.

"I really had fun out there in the first race today," said Lowndes. "In some ways it reminded me of my go-karting days. I had an awesome start, which set me up well for a good 🎀result. Whilst I did not have great straight line speed we did recover from the engine misfire of yesterday and I hop▨e I have now put all my bad luck behind me."

Former Championship driver Dean Canto meanwhile won the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series event ahead of another ex-main game driver Steve Owen and Seven's Grant Denyꦓer.

The V8 Supercar Championship nᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚow moves to Winton Raceway in Victoria in just under a fortnight's time⛎.