Red Bull's Craig Lowndes has converted his hard fought pole position into a crushing race one victorܫy at Symmons Plains to open his 2015 V8 Supercars account.

Lowndes made perfect use of his 38th career pole after taking immediaꦡte control of the race on a 🌌circuit which tends to lend fewer overtaking opportunities than most.

The Triple Eight drive꧅r masterfully quelled the attentions ofౠ Prodrive's Mark Winterbottom on the opening lap before setting about establishing an unassailable three-second buffer back to the Pepsi Max Falcon FG X.

Behind the serenity at the head of the field, the infamous turn four hairpin cla♑imed its first victim right at the start of the race. An enraged Will Davison was the unlucky reciprocate of the first lap drama after it appears points leader James Courtney tagged the Erebus E63 into a race-denting spin.

Davison had been enjoying his best w🔴eekend of the campaign so far thanks to a strong qual🧸ifying performance, which allowed the Erebus driver to propel his E63 past Courtney into third. The incident though dropped Davison into 17th.

Tekno Autosport's Shane Van Gisbergen cleverly read t🍌he events occurring in front of him to produce a creative slingshot move around the outside of turn four, jumping multiple positions in the process.

The Kiwi's progress ended there though as the 2014 runner-up was forced to fend off Chaz Mostert, wꦬho in the end had to settle for𝔍 fifth.

Unlike☂ Lowndes, defending champion Jamie Whincup once again seemingly struggled to unlock his Red Bull Commodore's full potential. By race end, Whincup was a full ten-seconds off his team mate b🐻ehind to finish sixth behind the Bottle-O Falcon of David Reynolds.

Holden Racing's Garth Tander picked up some more solid points in eighth to continue hi🦄s consistent start to the s💖eason as Tim Slade and Fabian Coulthard rounded out the top ten.

Unbelievably, Volvo's ꦏScott McLaughlin's running was cut premature when an undisclosed engine issue on the first lap compounde✱d yet more misery upon the Kiwi's traumatic start to the 2015 season.