 Whincup took the pole position by posting the fastest lap in the top ten shootout but lost his lead to Salo at the start which was twice red flagged for a total of 50 minutes because of two separate start-line crashes that reduced the distance of the race from 102 to 79 laps.Bourdais challenged Salo over laps 23 and 32 but he could not overtake Salo on both occasions as the latter struggled with acceleration.Whincup later relieved Bourdais and retook the lead to build up a six-and-a-half second advantage that was reduced to nothing when the safety car was deployed for debris retrieval.