It was the sixth Great Race career victory for Lowndes and his fifth in the last decade, while Richards edged closer to his father Jim’s mark of seven titles by securing his fourth.

Prodrive Racing pair Mark Winterbottom and Steve Owen were second, with Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander and Warren Luff third.

After a chaos-filled three days leading up to the main event, it was a relatively incident free race on Sunday. But there was still plenty of drama.

With 24 laps to go, Dick Johnson Racing Team Penske driver Scott Pye hit the wall at Reid Park, bringing a safety car onto the track.

During that yellow flag period defending V8 Supercars series champion Jamie Whincup – leading the race at that point – passed the safety car while heading up Mountain Straight.

He was given a drive through penalty that cost him his spot. He finished 18th, though he did set a race lap record of two minutes, 7.1226 seconds after resuming.

At the end, though, the focus was all on Red Bull Racing star Lowndes who claimed the Peter Brock Trophy yet again. Already talk has turned to whether he can match the record of the man who it is named after.

He hosed it down a little though.

“I said it’s doubtful, nine times is a lot of wins,” Lowndes said.

“Obviously he was very instrumental in helping me when I first came to the place. It’s a credit and an honour to be able to have our names on that trophy.”

The crowd were in raptures by the end of the race, understandably given Lowndes’ enduring popularity as well as that of Richards.

But Lowndes wasn’t able to soak too much of it up until the final lap as he tried to ensure that Winterbottom couldn’t close a three-and-a-half second gap that was steady throughout the last 45 minutes of the race.

“I was more focused on trying to keep the gap to Frosty [Winterbottom],” he said.

“When you’re in a battle like that it is probably easier to keep focus on what you really need to do.

“That last lap, I backed off and really enjoyed the lap for what it was. I could see the crowd going wild across the top and everywhere the flags were flying.

“To be on the top step [of the podium] with Richo is really nice.”

Earlier Whincup and co-driver Paul Dumbrell had led for much of the race after starting from eighth on the grid, while Lowndes and Richards steadily worked their way forward from 15th.

Pole-sitter David Reynolds sat out the opening stint as his co-driver Dean Canto began the race. It was a move that didn’t work as well as planned as Canto dropped to sixth after eight laps.

Winterbottom and Owen had to start from 14th while Tander and Luff had it all to do, having qualified in 22nd.

For the runners-up, it was a tale of what might have been, as an electrical fault led to a 15-second penalty as well as the time it took to solve the problem.

However, a gamble Winterbottom took during a period of steady rain all but made up the difference. He opted to stay on slick tyres while most of his rivals took the wet weather option.

After the final restart following the Whincup incident, Lowndes pulled away from the championship-leading Winterbottom and quickly established a three seconds gap. 

And he maintained it, much to the delight of Richards.

“I’m pretty humbled, to be honest,” he said.

“You come here every year to do your very best, I’ve been lucky enough in the four times that I’ve been up here [in first] and I’ve driven with some great guys and been involved in some really cool teams.

“At the end of the day we come along and play our role and get involved, make a deal with the team to try and have some input and try and work with CL [Lowndes] and make the thing go fast and we did that this weekend.

“I was pretty happy with the way I drove the car today, but I’m just a very small cog in a big wheel.”