Hi to all you Supercars Fans around the world!
At the end of the 2021 Supercars season Jamie Whincup retired from full time racing. This is a tribute to his amazing 20-year driving career in Supercars marked by many records and achievements.
He will continue driving in the Enduro races (which includes The Bathurst 1000) so I imagine his win tally is not complete just yet. He is also going on to be Team Principal for his team, 888 Race Engineering (taking over from founder, Roland Dane).
Jamie Whincup was born on the 6th of February 1983 in Melbourne Victoria, Australia. At the time of publishing this article that makes him 38 years old.
In 1991 when Jamie Whincup was just 7 years old he started racing in go karts. By the age of 14 he had claimed countless rookie junior titles and celebrated his 15th birthday by winning the Senior Formula A Karting title.
In 2001 Whincup embarked on the Formula Ford Championship with the Mygale Racing Team that was run by his father David and his uncle Graeme, a former sports sedan star. He also had mechanical support from former Supercars driver Greg Ritter. For his first season he had excellent results and finished 3rd in the championship.
Then he moved to Sonic Motorsport owned by Michael Ritter, brother of Greg Ritter for the 2002 season. It was only his second season, but he went on to win the Formula Ford Championship convincingly.
Also, in 2002 he made his Supercars debut with Garry Rogers Motorsport at the Queensland 500 and The Bathurst 1000. His co-drivers for those 2 races were Max Dumesny and Mark Noske. Although Jamie Whincup hit a wall and was unable to complete The Bathurst 1000 (DNF) it did not deter Garry Rogers from seeing his potential.
For the following season, 2003 Garry Rogers offered him a fulltime drive. Jamie was only turning 20 that year.
He crashed and was unable to finish at Hidden Valley but it did not put the rookie off his game.
In the same year he also had bad luck at The Bathurst 1000 as co-driver to Garth Tander. He hit the wall at Forest Elbow. The damage was bad and he had to head back to the pits. It cost them any chance of a decent result after starting in 4th position.
In 2004 Jamie Whincup wasn’t fulltime but he did Sandown and Bathurst with Larry Perkins (Castrol Perkins Racing).
In 2005 he returned to fulltime Supercars racing with Tasman Motorsport as teammate to the late Jason Richards. They finished on the podium 3rd place in the Sandown 500 and 2nd in The Bathurst 1000. Not a bad result for someone in the game for just a couple of years.
2013 Jamie won his 3rd title in a row to give him his 5th championship.
When Jamie Whincup joined 888 Race Engineering back in 2006 he was teammate to the already legendary Craig Lowndes. Founder, Roland Dane desperately wanted some big wins for his team and brought Jamie in as part of a super plan.
Pairing Jamie with Craig Lowndes paid off for Roland. They didn’t fair that well at The Sandown 500 due to a mechanical problem, but struck gold at the big one, The Bathurst 1000. This was only Jamie’s 3rd year as a fulltime driver.
One of the big legends of the track, Peter Brock had passed away just a couple of months earlier. The Bathurst 1000 trophy was renamed in his honour, The Peter Brock Trophy. Lowndes and Whincup were the first to have their names inscribed on it. Brock was also mentor to Craig Lowndes so it must have meant quite a lot to Lowndes to win this race (The video embedded shows how emotional it was for both Craig and Jamie).
The other big win for Jamie that year was the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.
Roland Dane’s hunch about this new young driver was right and they kept Jamie on for the following season of 2007.
Jamie was not about to let anyone down. In 2007 he earned his first career pole at Queensland Raceway and then won the round at Winton Motor Raceway.
The golden pair, Lowndes and Whincup then went on to win The Sandown 500 and The Bathurst 1000. This was the second Bathurst 1000 in a row.
Jamie followed up by then winning in Tasmania.
In the end he fell just 2 points short of Garth Tander for the 2007 Supercars Championship.
Jamie was kept on at 888 Race Engineering and had a great start to the 2008 year. He cleaned up at the first round winning both races at The Clipsal 500.
After the second round at Eastern Creek, NSW he was points leader on the championship ladder. But in the third round at Hamilton New Zealand, he missed the entire round after crashing in Qualifying.
It didn’t put his form off.
After winning races at Melbourne and Winton he was again paired with Lowndes for The Bathurst 1000. The Golden Duo performed magic once again. For the third time in a row they won the biggest race of the year, The Bathurst 1000.
That year Supercars also travelled to Bahrain for one of the rounds. No one had experience at this track. After winning at Bathurst and following up with 3 straight wins at Queensland’s Gold Coast he was in the best form ever. Once again the magic shone and he cleaned up in all three races.
Since Bahrain in 2008 Jamie Whincup has not been beaten at any Supercars event outside of Australia.
Except for Phillip Island, Jamie won at least 1 race in the 7 remaining rounds of the year.
By the end of the season his tally was 14 race wins out of 34 starts (this excludes Hamilton where he missed the entire round of 3 races). That is a 44.1% average win. He took the driver’s championship.
With stats like that people could see this was more than just beginner rookie enthusiasm. It was the coming of age of a race legend!
In 2009 Jamie Whincup ran the number 1 on his Team Vodafone Ford Falcon. The number 1 is honoured to the driver who wins the previous season.
He took the first 4 races in ’09 and managed to lead the championship from start to finish. This was his second championship win, earning them both in a row.
The 2010 season marked a change in cars for 888 from Ford to Holden. They started with two rounds overseas in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. Jamie Whincup won the 4 out of 4 races to start the season.
He went on to do exceedingly well earning 10 pole positions and 14 podiums for the season, 9 of which were first place.
Even with such amazing results he unfortunately lost the championship to James Courtney. Incidentally, Courtney’s tally for the year was 1 pole position and 9 podiums, 5 of which were wins. Compared to Jamie’s 9 wins for the season it was the big point races where Courtney got ahead.
Jamie wasn’t going to let that happen again. In 2011 he earned 19 podiums of 28 races(67.9%), 10 of them were wins (35.7%). Of the 1824 laps he completed he was in the lead for 659 (36.1%). I’m sorry if this sounds over the top but to be in the lead of ALL THE RACES for the year more than 1/3 of the time, THAT IS AMAZING!
He won the 2011 championship 35 points ahead of teammate, Craig Lowndes. More noticeably he was 449 points ahead of Mark Winterbottom in 3rd place. It was Jamie’s 3rd championship title.
Jamie Whincup lost his dad David to Lymphoma cancer on the eve of the 2012 Supercars championship. He won the opening race for the season The Clipsal 500, as a tribute to his father.
Jamie cleaned up that year claiming his 4th championship title. It was another back-to-back title win. He took 24 podiums of 30 races (80%), 12 of which were 1st place (40%), 339 points ahead of his nearest rival Craig Lowndes.
So dear readers, are you getting the picture of why Jamie Whincup is my favourite driver of all time?
Jamie went on to win the 2013 championship making it his 3rd in a row and his 5th in total.
In 2014 Jamie catapulted to legendary status by winning his 6th championship title. That was his 4th in a straight row.
In 2016 another star-to-be joined the 888 Race Engineering team, Shane Van Gisbergen. The two worked well together. Van Gisbergen took the title that year, Jamie running second and Lowndes fourth. The trio at triple 8 were an amazing team.
2017 Jamie took back the title for his 7th time. This was won over a new upcoming star Scott McLaughlin.
2018 saw Scott McLaughlin take the title, but it was the 888 trio that filled the remaining top spots. Van Gisbergen was 2nd, Whincup 3rd and Lowndes 4th. Unfortunately, it was the final year of the trio as Lowndes retired at the end of the season.
2019, 2020 and 2021 ran much the same way where Van Gisbergen finally took his second title in 2021.
2021 was Jamie’s last fulltime season of racing in Supercars. He was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal (for being the best and fairest) for the 3rd time.
His career is highlighted by working with some of the best drivers to ever get behind the wheel, including his co-drivers:
- Max Dumsney 2002
- Mark Noske 2002
- Garth Tander 2003
- Alex Davison 2004
- Jason Richards 2005
- Craig Lowndes 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2019, 2020, 2021
- Steve Owen 2010
- Andrew Thompson 2011
- Paul Dumbrell 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.
Jamie Whincup has competed in 552 races, earning 92 poles, 124 first place wins of 267 podiums.
Of the 30,057 laps completed he was in the lead for 6962 (that is close to being in the lead ¼ of his professional career). That ain’t bad at all!
At just 38 years of age with 7 championships, his achievements include back-to-back titles for Ford and 4 straight titles for Holden, 4 Bathurst 1000 wins and countless other record holding achievements.
Jamie Whincup, congratulations on everything you have achieved during your supercars career. Best of luck for the future. You will be missed on the grid in 2022.