Whincup destroys Bathurst winner.

Jamie Whincup suffered what he described as 'the biggest hit of my career' at Symmons Plains in an accident that left the Team Betta Electrical Bathurst winning Falcon severely damaged.

Whincup took over the Bathurst winner after team-mate Craig Lowndes switched to a newly built Falcon for the Ferodo Tasmania Challenge and qualified in tenth place for the opening race on Saturday.

However his weekend would soon come to an abrupt end when, having made a clean start, he was tapped from the rear into a spin that saw him make heavy contact with the wall, substantially damaging the #88 Falcon and putting him out of the rest of the weekend.

"I am very disappointed," Whincup said after Saturday's race. "The car has some substantial structural damage and we won't be able to fix it in time for tomorrow's races.

"I pride myself on looking after any car that I race so I am shattered at the state of our Bathurst winning car. That was without a doubt the biggest hit of my career."

While team-mate Craig Lowndes claimed two top ten finishes in races two and three, Whincup and his crew focused on preparing his old car in readiness for transportation to Bahrain for the penultimate round of the V8 Supercar Championship in ten days time.

The damaged Bathurst winning chassis will be returned to the Brisbane based team's headquarters for a complete evaluation with the severity of the damage dictating whether or not it races again this year.