Jamie Whincup Loses To David Coulthard By 17 Hundredths Of A Second
David Coulthard, the 43 year old retired Formula One driver won the 2014 Race of the Champions. The 26th year of the event took place at the weekend of Dec 13-14 at the Bushy Park circuit in Barbados. The Nordic team won the Nation's Cup while Pascal Wehrlein was the runner-up in the individual contest to Coulthard.
Jamie Whincup of Australia, the reigning series champion for four consecutive years of the V8 Supercars and overall six times champion lost to the eventual champion David Coulthard in the semi-finals by 17 hundreds of a second. This was Whincup's second year in the race. He raced wearing an Australian flag-themed driver's suit and had to drive his way out of the very competitive Group A which included the eventual champion, fellow Australian Mick Doohan as well as Formula One star Romain Grosjean, who was the champion of the previous year's race.
In the group stages Whincup lost to Coulthard but he beat compatriot Mick Doohan as well as the reigning ROC champion Grosjean to move to the quarter-final stage. He defeated NASCAR star Kurt Busch to reach the semi-finals where he eventually lost to David Coulthard by the tiniest of margins. Earlier at the Nation's Cup Jamie Whincup and Mick Doohan failed to get Team Australia past the group stages. Whincup was gracious enough to congratulate the individual winner in a cheeky way by posting on his Instagram page.
"Congratulations to David Coulthard..........Not only was he the last to leave the bar each night, but he's one of the funniest bastards I have ever meet (sic) and drove out of his skin all weekend," Whincup posted.
Incidentally the Race of Champions also featured champion drivers in the nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, WTCC champion Jose Maria Lopez, IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, WRC and World Rallycross champion Petter Solberg, NASCAR champion Kurt Busch and MotoGP champion Mick Doohan. This year's Nation Cup was also the first event from 1999 not to feature a German Team while Argentina and Barbados participated for the very first time.
