Toll HSV Dealer Team’s Garth Tander is the overwhelming favourite to win the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship, according to his peers. Tander scored 18 of the possible 31 votes of V8 Supercar drivers polled by Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper for an article in a pre-season V8 supplement published today on the eve of Round 1 of the championship, the Clipsal 500, in Adelaide.
His nearest challenger, Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom, managed six votes, while Craig Lowndes, who won a similar poll last year, came third with three votes. 2006 Champion Rick Kelly was one of four drivers to score one vote, the others being Mark Skaife, Jamie Whincup and Steven Richards.
Tander, who came second in a similar poll last year, told the Herald Sun’s Paul Gover that it was humbling to be measured by peers in this way. But he said it was incredibly difficult to pick a favourite for the title because the V8 Series was too competitive.
Tander said Rick Kelly was one of three or four drivers who could well win the 2007 championship, as could Lowndes, Winterbottom and Skaife. Kelly rates his own Toll HSV team-mate as his biggest threat to his title defence this year, adding that the spur of having two title contenders parked in the same pit garage would help to drive the team to the front of the field again this year. While Kelly already has one championship in the bag, Tander is still looking for his first.
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