Craig Lowndes returning to Finke Desert Race

March 13, 2026

Craig Lowndes’ Finke Desert Race debut didn’t end as he hoped, so he’s raring for a second chance. Like in 2024, he will race the Chevrolet Silverado ZR2.

Lowndes is one of the greatest drivers in Supercars history, winning the championship thrice and the Bathurst 1000 seven times. While his successes have predominantly been on pavement, he’s no slouch in the desert either.

While his dream of racing the Dakar Rally has yet to materialize, he won the 2010 Australasian Safari in his cross-country rally debut. He also led the 2011 edition before rolling. Since Lowndes was still in Supercars at the time, he wouldn’t return to the off-road world until he retired from full-time competition after 2018.

In 2021, Lowndes did the Finke Prologue in a UTV with Mark Dutton as his co-driver. Dutton is the manager of Triple Eight Race Engineering, who fielded Fords and Holdens for Lowndes for much of his Supercars career.

He finally got to race the Finke proper in 2024, driving the Chevrolet Silverado ZR2 Off-Road Racer from General Motors Specialty Vehicles. This turned the race into a classic duel between rivals Chevy and Ford, the latter fielding the Ranger Raptor for Brad Lovell.

Lowndes drew first blood when he finished ahead of Lovell in the Prologue, then dominated Day 1 as he set the production vehicle record for fastest run from Finke to Alice Springs. However, the upper control arm ball joint broke just 39 kilometers into Day 2 and destroyed his front suspension.

With no other opposition, Lovell drove off to the Production 4WD win. Lowndes didn’t appear in 2025, which allowed Lovell to destroy the class record in his Ranger.

Understandably, Lowndes wants to get back in the game. The ZR2 is the same as the one he raced in 2024, albeit now colored red and featuring Supercheap Auto backing as opposed to the generic black look that Chevrolet uses. Lowndes noted it had been “sitting at the GM head office and we convinced them that we need to have another crack at this.”

While it is “straight off the showroom floor” for Lowndes, modifications were made to the suspension.

“It’s a great truck. I use one on the daily basis so for me, it’s my daily commute,” Lowndes commented. “It almost looks too good to race. I said almost. We’re looking forward to going back and having some redemption.

“It’s exciting because there are some areas where this truck is going to be really fast and it’s the open flowing stuff. Prologue, we really surprised a lot of people last time. I think we will do it again this time. Expectations is to win. We’ve put a lot of heart and soul and into the truck.”