Originally Posted by ian959
Surfers was where Lowndes lost the championship - and not because of the stewards. The regs regarding chicanes are very clear - you cut the chicane, you cede your place to the car behind you. The drive through penalty is imposed by the IPO if you don't do this. That's what Lowndes copped. His rant after the race was unwarranted and incorrect.
As for the Holden teams being in cahoots, well they made this blindingly obvious at Surfers too. It was openly discussed in pit lane after the last V8 race there. It was well known that the HRT/HSV teams would be doing anything they could to aid a championship win for Rick Kelly. Tander got a little too blatant at Philip Island and copped the consistently applied penalty for blocking as a result.
If Lowndes and the Ford fans want to apportion "blame", look no further than the poor results at Surfers and Symmons Plains. Had Lowndes had "normal" results at both, the issues at Philip Island would have been irrelevant as he would have had the championship pretty well sewn up.
The stewards by the way could not give a stuff who wins a race or a championship - in fact when ever a steward hears a charge or a protest, the last thing in their mind is what effect it has on a championship or race result. The Stewards did their job correctly with respect of Race 3 at Philip Island. Rick Kelly copped the standard drive through penalty for contact with Craig Lowndes (although the video evidence was not conclusive that the contact was deliberate) and that is where the matter was dealt with. The Stewards then deliberated over a protest from an aggrieved competitor and (presumably) could find no substantive evidence to suggest that the penalty applied was incorrect or insufficient.
The rules as set down by V8 Supercars were applied in accordance with the manual, the IPO did his job correctly, the Stewards did their job correctly - end of story.