Just a week ago, Will Davison could have been forgiven for wondering if he had made the right move.
Top gear: Fabian Coulthard during race two at the Tasmania SuperSprint at Symmons Plains on Sunday. Photo: Getty Images
Just a week ago, Will Davison could have been forgiven for wondering if he had made the right move. On top of his struggles in the first two V8 Supercars events of the season with his new team, the squad lost its highly respected manager unexpectedly.
No one would have blamed Davison if he had spent Easter questioning whether he had made the right decision in ending his tenure at Erebus Motorsport two years early to replace Shane van Gisbergen at the small Tekno Autosports Holden operation.
As it happened, Davison ��� who is renowned as a worrier ��� took his lack of early speed in the season-opening Adelaide 500 and again in the non-championship races at the Australian Grand Prix, and the departure of Tekno's internationally experienced team manager Steve Hallam, in his stride.
He believed the tight-knit team, which won races with van Gisbergen, had enough depth to regain its competitiveness without Hallam and backed himself to use his experience and skill to lead the outfit back to the front of the field.
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Certainly, even if he had even the slightest of doubts as he pondered his situation over the Easter break, any misgivings were erased in the Tasmania SuperSprint at Symmons Plains Raceway, near Launceston, over the weekend.
Davison was the surprise winner of Sunday's dramatic 200km race, which was a fast and furious affair over 84 laps of the challenging 2.41km track, but his breakthrough victory was just the unexpected bonus of a weekend of encouraging progress.
Ironically, Davison's gifted success was at the expense of van Gisbergen, who was poised to complete his first V8 championship event sweep for his new Triple Eight Holden team until fate intervened towards the end of the race.
Van Gisbergen, who scored Holden's 500th championship race win in Saturday's 120km sprint, was comfortably leading until he arrived at the circuit's notorious hairpin corner and slid off on oil dropped by a backmarker's car with just over four laps to go.
Defending V8 champion Mark Winterbottom was just moments behind and also skated wide in his Prodrive Racing Falcon, but unlike van Gisbergen, who became bogged in the gravel run-off, he was able to continue to the finish.
But not before Davison and Lowndes, who were warned by their teams over radio of the drama ahead, slithered past Winterbottom into the top two positions.
Davison, 33, held on to score a fortuitous win from Lowndes and Winterbottom, but given the uncertainties he faced and the turnaround he effected over the weekend, it was a victory also well-deserved.
The Melbourne-born, Gold Coast-based 2009 Bathurst 1000 co-winner finished a fighting third in Saturday's shorter race behind van Gisbergen and six-time V8 champion Jamie Whincup in a podium lock-out for Triple Eight-built Commodores.
Davison loomed as a genuine threat to win Sunday's race on speed when he set the quickest lap time in qualifying, only to be relegated to third starting position on the second row of the grid for a rule infringement.
He was penalised two grid positions for obstructing James Courtney, with whom he has had regular run-ins, as he was cruising back to the pits after his hot lap.
Davison would have been content in the circumstances to finish third behind van Gisbergen and Winterbottom in the race, with perhaps the chance to overtake Lowndes near the end to get on the podium again.
But his composure paid off as the leaders were brought undone by the engine oil spill at the hairpin on the 80th lap.
Davison also used the incident to ambush Lowndes and take the lead in the scramble that followed after they passed the incident scene.
It is his first win since the Perth SuperSprint last May, when he scored his only victory during a difficult two seasons in Erebus Motorsport's Mercedes AMG.
Davison's lack of success at Erebus, where the former Holden and Ford factory driver was one of the highest paid in V8 racing, prompted an agreement for him to leave halfway through a four-year contract to join Tekno this year to replace van Gisbergen, who switched to Triple Eight alongside Whincup and Lowndes.
Whincup, after an earlier rare driver error had put him out of contention in Sunday's race, was one of the first victims of the oil spillage from Cam Waters' Falcon that created the race-changing chaos.
To add to Davison's unlikely ascension, the win lifted him into the lead of the championship after five races.
He is atop the standings with 417 points, 15 clear of Lowndes and 24 clear of Whincup, followed by Winterbottom (-49) and van Gisbergen (-70).
The next V8 Supercars championship event is the April 16-17 Phillip Island SuperSprint.