Nine years after making his category debut at Phillip Island, Holden’s Garth Tander has taken home the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series crown.

After 14 rounds of close competition, a fourth-place finish in race three was all Tander needed to win his maiden championship by just two points from Team Vodafone’s Jamie Whincup in a battle that did not finish until the last corner of the last lap in the final race.

"It’s unbelievable," said an elated Tander. "To go to Phillip Island seven points behind and then qualify seventh, which for us was not a great performance, to win that (first) race really set up our charge for the rest of the weekend."

At a round which showed arguably the best driving standards of any recent championship, HRT’s Todd Kelly played a critical part in keeping the Ford chasers at bay by winning the final race by just 0.83sec from Whincup, with Craig Lowndes third.

"I was certainly watching Jamie and Todd for the last lap because I knew if Jamie got past Todd, then she was curtains for us," said Tander. "But Todd held on and saved my bacon."

The climb back from a disappointing previous round at Tasmania, where Tander lost the championship lead to Whincup, was commendable, while the seven-year wait since being runner-up in the 2000 championship only added to the jubilation of the win.

"Once I made that mistake in race three (trying to pass Steven Richards) at Tasmania, I realised that I’d dug myself into a pretty big hole and the only way I was going to get out of it was to fight as hard as I could," said Tander.

"Since 2000 I’ve wanted to win the championship and it’s why I moved to the HSV Dealer Team, and they’ve won two championships in the three years I’ve been there. To win my championship with them, it’s been absolutely fantastic."

With no rest during the V8 Supercar off-season, Tander’s will focus not only on his 2008 campaign but that of his wife Leanne’s Formula Three championship assault.

"We’ve got a bit going on in the TanderSport program in F3 next year so the boss (wife Leanne) has got me busy," he said.

Tander topped the points with 625 ahead of Whincup (623) and Lowndes (592). Tander also claimed his 15th race win and fourth round victory, helping the Toll HSV Dealer Team to the team’s championship title. Holden won the manufacturer’s gong.

– Filippa Guarna

Green tyres will be on the grid in 2008 THE tyres that will be fitted to the Falcons and Commodores in 2008 may look just as black as ever, but Dunlop insists they will be greener. Dunlop has begun testing a new synthetic tyre compound additive designed to reduce the amount of crude oil used to create each tyre. Mark Skaife and Jamie Whincup tested the new tyre formula, fitted to a Holden Racing Team Commodore and a Triple Eight Falcon respectively, at Phillip Island on the Tuesday following the V8 Supercar Grand Finale in December. Dunlop’s operations manager V8 Supercars, Kevin Fitzsimons, said the additive had been successfully introduced to racing tyres in nine other motorsport categories around the world. He was confident there would be no noticeable change to how the tyres performed, with the added benefit of reducing the dependence on oil. "This is the direction we are going. We’ve done it in other racing categories and we’re confident the drivers will not notice a great difference," he said. Fitzsimons insisted the changes to the tyre compound had nothing to do with the number of tyre failures at the Bathurst 1000 this year, which he says were caused by damage to the kerbs. – Gavin McGrath