Whincup 'confused and shattered'.

Team Vodafone driver Jamie Whincup endured a weekend to forget in Bahrain as he failed to score any points and slipped to third in the V8 Supercar Championship standings.

Whincup went into the weekend with a lead of nine points over Toll HSV Dealer Team's Garth Tander but a weekend where nothing went right for Whincup means he now heads to the penultimate round of the campaign at Symmons Plains having dropped to third in the standings - 29 points behind Tander and nine behind team-mate Craig Lowndes.

Forced to retire from the opening race following an incident with Lowndes and Paul Morris on the first lap, Whincup faced the prospect of coming through the field in race two but saw his hopes hit on lap one when he was tipped into a spin by Alan Gurr. To make matters worse, Whincup then rejoined the circuit in front of Max Wilson, with the resulting contact damaging the Vodafone Falcon and leading to a drive-through penalty.

Near the back again for the start of race three, Whincup was making up places again before being hit with another drive-through penalty for an incident on pit-lane. It meant that Whincup could only manage 16th place - leaving him pointless from the weekend.

"I am confused and shattered about what has happened over this weekend," he reflected. "We are really disappointed. When things don't go your way they really don't go your way.

"We qualified bad and were back in the pack, vulnerable to incidents, which is what happened and ruined our first race. During race two and three we were also involved in incidents, we seemed to go up and down the field like a yo-yo.

"In race two I didn't think anyone else would be coming, I had very limited vision and unfortunately Max [Wilson] was there. Apparently I hit cones in race three but I don't think I did, it was a disastrous weekend I am glad it is over.

"We now need to regroup from here and look towards Tasmania and Phillip Island."