Lowndes signs milestone Triple Eight contract extension

Craig Lowndes will be a 20-year Triple Eight driver, with the team announcing the seven-time Bathurst winner has extended his contract with the team.

Lowndes, 49,has extended his contract for two years until the end of the 2025 season with the champion team.

It marks a 20-year milestone with the team in 2024, with Lowndes first joining Triple Eight in 2005.

Between 2005 and 2018, Lowndes raced full-time with the team and won the Bathurst 1000 six times for the squad — three times in Fords, and three in Holdens.

With the contract renewal, Triple Eight is set to field Lowndes in a wildcard car in endurance events for the next two years.

With 19 seasons with Triple Eight, Lowndes holds the record — outside of a team owner/driver — for the longest tenure by any driver with a single team.

The three-time series champion has taken 58 race wins, 29 poles and 130 podium finishes in Triple Eight colours, not to mention four Sandown 500 wins and two Phillip Island 500 wins.

In 18 Bathurst starts with Triple Eight, Lowndes has nine podium finishes, 12 top five finishes and 14 top ten finishes.

He will make start No. 19 with Triple Eight — and 30 overall — at the Repco Bathurst 1000 alongside Zane Goddard in the team’s Supercheap Auto-backed wildcard Camaro.

First, Lowndes and Goddard will test at Queensland Raceway on September 4, before the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 on September 15-17.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be continuing my racing career with Triple Eight for the next two years and I’m excited to reach a 20-year milestone with the team in 2024,” he said.

“I’ve shared some amazing moments with Triple Eight over the past 18-and-a-half years, and I want to thank Jamie [Whincup], Jess [Dane] and the team for wanting to extend this successful partnership.

"It’s crazy to think we’ll be celebrating two decades together next year!

“When I retired from full time racing at the end of 2018, I always said that I wanted to continue to stay involved by fostering the next generation of Supercars racers, which I’ve been fortunate enough to do through the team’s wildcard program.

"It’s something that I find both professionally and personally rewarding and a way I can give back to the sport that has been such a big part of my life.

“For now, I’m really looking forward to the upcoming enduro season alongside Zane Goddard and can’t wait to hit the track for our upcoming test days in preparation for the Sandown 500 in September."

Triple Eight boss Whincup, who won Bathurst three times with Lowndes, hailed the milestone renewal.

“Lowndesy is obviously a huge part of Triple Eight’s DNA, and for him to continue his legacy with the team into a 20th year and beyond is truly remarkable,” Whincup said.

“I’ve personally shared so many memories with Craig, highlighted by our Bathurst 1000 three-peat which I’ll cherish forever. We wouldn’t be where we are now without his contribution to the team and the sport as a whole.

“Lowndesy’s worth is just as valuable off the track as it is on it. His mentorship of the youth in our sport, as we’ve seen from the success of our Supercheap Auto Racing wildcard program over the past two years, has been unbelievable.

"For these young guns to have someone of Lowndesy’s caliber by their side sharing his race craft and experience is something they can only dream of."