Just three races into the series and Ford’s Will Davison is already tightening his grip on the V8 Supercar Championship.

Davison – despite admitting to being “away with the pixies” while leading late in Saturday’s 59-lap – sealed his third race win of the year and the ninth of his career.

Davison fought his way from sixth on the grid to beat home defending champion Jamie Whincup in a Holden.

Whincup managed to slip past polesitter Garth Tander just three laps from the end to seal a runner-up finish.

Davison said towards the end while leading he felt uncomfortable with his tyres going off after bouncing through the chicane lap after lap on two wheels.

“They certainly do degrade and you’re never comfortable around this place,” he said.

“You lose concentration for a second and you’re in the wall so quickly.

“I really had to talk to myself a lot – I started going away with the pixies there the last few laps.

“I had to keep my eye on the prize with the car getting looser and looser.

“Clearly we’re pretty strong but I think we’re going to have to tweak it up a bit tomorrow to hang on to P1.”

Davison made a lightning start to set up his race as a tangle started on the front row.

“The first lap was awesome for me,” Davison said. “Obviously starting sixth wasn’t ideal but I knew we were better and quicker than that but getting through the traffic was going to be the tricky thing,” he said.

“To pop out second from sixth at turn two was fantastic.”

Davison harried leader Tander for the first third of the race and eventually made his move at the first corner.

The Ford star swept past the West Australian to seize the lead and, with clean air, managed to pull away.

“Garth was going pretty well, I couldn’t get a run on him and he certainly wasn’t making mistakes,” Davison said.

“But my car came on quite well in the middle part of the stint and again I had to play it smart – I managed to get a good run onto him on the straight and outbraked him down to turn one.”

Local hero Shane van Gisbergen was the victim of an over-aggressive start, which was the precursor of his race deteriorating from bad to disastrous.

The New Zealander jumped away from second spot on the grid in his Falcon in an attempt to beat Tander to the first turn.

However he went in far too deep and out-braked himself, dropping back several spots.

In a bid to make up for lost time, van Gisbergen exceeded the number of times a driver can “kerb-hop” during the chicane and was penalised with a drive-through penalty.

Whincup’s Triple Eight teammate Craig Lowndes’ New Zealand misery continued.

Despite his successes in Australia, New Zealand has never been kind to Lowndes and he battled to improve from sixth, eventually finishing fourth, after the retirement of Ford’s David Reynolds.

Reynolds, one of the series’ most promising drivers, was running in a respectable fourth place before his race was over six laps from the finish with a front-end issue.