In a thrilling race which came down to a last lap passing move, Holden’s Jamie Whincup has started his V8 Supercar title defence a winner.

Whincup mowed down Ford driver Will Davison, whose car was running out of fuel, with seconds remaining to win the opening race of the Clipsal 500 on Saturday – a contest decided by when, how quickly and how often the protagonists made their pit stops.

And as so often happens, Whincup’s TeamVodafone came up trumps – the three-time series champion producing one of his best-ever drives to claim victory as his team got their strategy right.

Whincup drove phenomenally when he took the race lead on lap 52 – breaking lap record after lap record for 15 laps until he made his final pit stop.

That left Davison in front, and his Ford Performance Racing team attempted the high-risk strategy of letting him run to the finish with virtually no fuel.

With Whincup closing in rapidly, Davison’s car started to cough and splutter with three turns remaining around the Adelaide street circuit.

And Whincup’s Commodore rocketed past – Davison just managing to cross the line in second place before his last wisp of fuel evaporated.

Holden’s Garth Tander finished third, with Whincup’s team-mate Craig Lowndes fourth.

Whincup’s win had added emotion after his father David died last Sunday.

Several big crashes at the high-speed turn eight marred the race, leaving many teams facing working overnight to fix destroyed cars for Sunday’s second 250km event – including James Courtney’s Holden Racing Team.

The 2010 champion wiped out the left-hand-side of his Commodore in a huge lap four incident in which Holden duo Jason Bright and Taz Douglas crashed separately at the same time.

Bright was taken to hospital for precautionary X-rays after complaining of a sore shoulder following the crash.

Ford driver David Reynolds also had a huge crash at turn eight midway through the race, leaving his Bottle-O Racing team an all-night job to repair the car.