Craig Andrew Lowndes (born 21 June 1974) is an Australian racing car driver in the Repco Supercars Championship racing for Team 18. He is also a TV commentator.

Lowndes is a three-time V8 Supercar champion, a five-time Barry Sheene Medalist, and a seven-time winner of Australia's most prestigious motor race, the Bathurst 1000 and two-time winner of the Bathurst 12 Hour.

On 6 July 2018, Lowndes announced his intention to step down from full-time driving at the end of the 2018 season, continuing as a co-driver.

Lowndes also voices Conrod in Roary the Racing Car in both the UK and US.

Racing career Lowndes began his racing career at age nine, driving go-karts and riding dirt bikes.

Early career Lowndes moved up to race cars in 1991, driving a Van Diemen in the Motorcraft Formula Ford "Driver to Europe" Series. Despite the car being several years old and receiving minimal sponsorship, Lowndes achieved almost immediate success. Lowndes won the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 1993 which qualified him for the Formula Ford Festival in England that same year, where he finished third. In 1994, he moved up to Australia's top rank of open wheel racing, Formula Brabham. His success in Formula Brabham driving an ageing Cheetah Mk9 against much more modern cars was rewarded with the Australian Silver Star.

Holden Racing Team In 1994, Lowndes joined the Holden Racing Team as a test driver. Having looked sufficiently promising in his maiden outings with the team, Lowndes was drafted into the No. 015 Commodore with Brad Jones for the 1994 Sandown 500. It was expected to be a one-off performance as Rickard Rydell from the BTCC was to join the team for Bathurst. However, Rydell was forced to stay home for family reasons, handing Lowndes a second opportunity to impress the team.

After a gruelling double-stint by Jones, Lowndes began the final stint of the race as the closest challenger to the dominant DJR Falcon of John Bowe. With eleven laps to go, Lowndes stunned the touring car establishment by overtaking Bowe on the outside of Griffins Bend. Bowe retook the lead a lap later when Lowndes was unsettled by lapped traffic. Nevertheless, second was an impressive achievement for a rookie driver. Lowndes won fans in pit lane when he later admitted that his passing move on Bowe was simply a case of missing his brake marker.

It would be almost a year before Lowndes would find himself back behind the driver's seat for HRT. Having been retained as their official test driver for 1995, Lowndes was forced to sit on the sidelines as the team persisted with their experienced line-up of Tomas Mezera and Peter Brock. At the season-ending endurance events, Lowndes was back behind the wheel and immediately impressed by taking his maiden pole position at the Sandown 500. His race would end in the gravel trap at Turn 1 after a spirited battle with veteran Glenn Seton. The rookie would prove his speed was no flash in the pain just a few short weeks later when he stormed to pole at the Bathrust 1000. His HRT Commodore would DNF early on in the race when both cars experienced oil pressure problems and eventual engine failure. The team had seen enough, however, and for the 1996 season Lowndes replaced Tomas Mezera.

In his first full season as an Australian Touring Car driver, Lowndes again surprised the establishment, winning the championship by 79 points from reigning champion, John Bowe. He also won both the Sandown and Bathurst races with teammate Greg Murphy, a rare treble. His Bathurst 1000 victory made him the youngest-ever winner of the race, and with Murphy, the youngest-ever driver pairing to win the Bathurst 1000. His unprecedented success prompted team owner Tom Walkinshaw to sign him to a ten-year management deal:

"We signed a deal earlier this year to get me overseas in 1997. Under the terms of the arrangement, he has got seven years to put me into F1. It's pretty rare for a young Australian to get a deal like this, although it's not so unusual in Europe for young drivers to get picked up at an early age."

Formula 3000 At the end of 1996, Lowndes left Australia for Europe to pursue his F1 dream with Walkinshaw. A successful F3 test prompted both Lowndes and Walkinshaw to skip the category altogether in favour of the heavier yet faster F3000 series. Super Nova team boss David Sears was impressed with Lowndes, but his insistence on a two-year commitment wasn't to Walkinshaw's liking and ultimately led to the Scotsman signing Lowndes to the RSM Marko Team in the 1997 International Formula 3000 Championship.Autocourse, 1997–98, pages 274–275 Lowndes would partner the highly rated Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.

Qualifying an impressive sixth on debut at Silverstone, Lowndes' rookie season in the category ultimately proved underwhelming, his best finish of 4th in Enna paling in comparison to Montoya's three wins and 2nd in the championship. Commenting on his time at RSM Marko, Lowndes would describe the experience as markedly different from his time at HRT:

"There was one engineer who engineered both cars and (Montoya) drove the car very differently to what I did. They basically made the cars the same and very similar in set-ups and I just had to deal with it."

Despite his struggles, Lowndes was determined to carry on, but with sponsors reluctant to fund another season he duly returned to Australia and HRT.

Australian return

Upon his return to Australia, Lowndes again won the 1997 Sandown 500 for HRT, partnered by New Zealander Greg Murphy. In 1998, he resumed his full-time race seat with the Holden Racing Team (at the expense of Murphy) alongside new teammate and former champion Mark Skaife. Picking up where he left off, Lowndes went on to win his second consecutive Championship.

In 1998, Lowndes flirted with a potential trans-pacific move to the American CART series. Although he tested with Team KOOL Green's Indy Lights outfit (with both he and fellow V8 Supercar regular Jason Bright setting competitive times, the latter for PacWest), Lowndes eventually decided to stay in Australia.

A third title would follow in 1999 with Lowndes finishing off the podium only once in the first 18 races. In the first full year of campaigning the new Holden VT Commodore, Lowndes had amassed a large lead by the time the series arrived for Round 8 at Calder Park Raceway. Having duly won the first sprint race, a poor start by Lowndes saw him bogged down in the field and subsequently tapped by another car which resulted in a spectacular roll over. Despite missing the following round at Symmons Plains Raceway due to injury, Lowndes still managed to clinch the Championship at the Bathurst Classic, finishing second in the final round of the season.

Lowndes began the 2000 season the favorite to win a 4th straight title. In a surprise move, Lowndes' race engineer Rob Starr was moved to the sister car of Skaife. Lowndes struggled with reliability and consistency throughout the season and finished 3rd, behind teammate Mark Skaife and Garth Tander, with three round wins including the Queensland 500. HRT team manager Jeff Grech described the Lowndes/Skaife rivalry as "... insanely competitive. To be honest with you, they both had fun at the expense of my sanity."

Ford In 2001, Lowndes caused a stir among race fans when he jumped ship from Holden to arch-rival manufacturer Ford, signing with a new team headed up by former driver Fred Gibson. Gibson had a successful track record as a team owner/manager, having spear-headed Nissan's domination of the ATCC in the early 1990s with, ironically, Mark Skaife. This partnership lasted for two years in which time Lowndes finished seventh and 11th in the championship. The relationship proved unsuccessful due to reliability issues with the Ford Falcon race car and behind-the-scenes uncertainty over the team's direction. Despite the setbacks, Lowndes garnered an admiration from fans for his positive attitude and demeanour. Gibson Motorsport was renamed to 00 Motorsport (pronounced "double-o", being Lowndes' racing number) after a change of management. Lowndes's black and silver Falcon was affectionately referred to as the "green-eyed monster" for the bright green covers over the headlights.

Ford Performance Racing Lowndes signed with the factory-sponsored Ford Performance Racing team for the 2003 season. The season saw Lowndes improve from the previous two seasons and managed a fifth place in the championship including his first round win since the Queensland 500 in 2000 and the first with Ford. The season proved inconsistent and reliability issues started setting in throughout the season causing Lowndes to miss out on a chance for the title. 2004 would be Lowndes worst championship year, reliability became a big issue in the FPR garage throughout the season. Lowndes finished 20th in the championship, causing him to leave the team at the end of 2004.

Triple Eight Race Engineering Lowndes joined Triple Eight Race Engineering in 2005 and enjoyed his most successful season since switching to Ford. He had the most round victories and the most pole positions of any driver in the championship, and finished second in the final standings behind champion Russell Ingall. At the Bathurst 1000 that year, after qualifying on pole, he spent much time in the pits after two separate incidents which severely damaged his Falcon including a wheel that smashed into his windscreen.

At the V8 Gala Awards, Lowndes was awarded the Barry Sheene Medal, an award akin to Most Valuable Player which is voted on by a team of panellists from the Australian media, motorsport magazines, television commentators and former drivers. This award was first introduced in 2003, in honour of the late Barry Sheene.

2006–2008

Lowndes was a contender for the championship right up until the last race, being level on points with Rick Kelly. The two fought one of the closest non-staged finishes in Bathurst 1000 history on 8 October 2006, with Lowndes winning over Kelly by just half a second. It was his first Bathurst win since 1996 and Ford's first since 1998. The win was a very emotional one for Lowndes, being the first Bathurst 1000 held since the death of his long-time mentor Peter Brock at a road rally the month before. As winners of the Bathurst 1000, the inaugural Peter Brock Trophy was presented to Lowndes and his teammate, Jamie Whincup.

Lowndes eventually finished second in the 2006 V8 Supercar season. After complaining of having been "unfairly" held up for up to six seconds a lap by Rick Kelly's teammates over the first two races, Lowndes was level on championship points with Kelly after race 2 (of 3) in the final round. In the deciding race Kelly crashed into Lowndes heading into the hairpin resulting in a lengthy pit stop to repair Lowndes' vehicle. Kelly received a drive-through penalty and went on to finish the race in 18th position and seal the championship victory, while Lowndes finished the race 31st.

Lowndes and Triple Eight Racing lodged a protest and a hearing was set up. The protest was dismissed after a long hearing and Rick Kelly was confirmed as the 2006 champion. Lowndes and Triple Eight Racing decided not to appeal that decision and proclaim themselves the "Moral Champions" for the 2006 season. Lowndes won the Barry Sheene Medal for the second year in a row.

Lowndes had three victories in 2007, the sixth round at Hidden Valley Raceway, and both the endurance races: the Sandown 500 and the Bathurst 1000. He finished third place in the championship, while his teammate, Jamie Whincup, finished second. In 2008, Lowndes and Whincup won the Bathurst 1000 for a third time in a row, becoming only the third pairing in the history of the Bathurst 1000 to achieve it, after Peter Brock and Jim Richards (1978–80) and Peter Brock and Larry Perkins (1982–84).

2009