Chris Pither scored his first V8 Supercars victory in the Dunlop Series in Townsville today, despite a controversial end to the 29 lap race.

Infants Friend driver Ashley Walsh held the race lead until Cameron Waters, who was running second-place at the time, made contact with the leading Falcon’s rear on the last corner of the last lap.

The incident saw Walsh spin on the entry to the final straight, before being collected by Eggleston Motorposrt pilot Gary Jacobson.

Waters took the chequered flag, but was served a 30-second penalty for the incident, allowing Pither to score his maiden Dunlop Series victory after crossing the line in second place.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, to tell you the truth,” a jubilated Pither told v8supercars.com.au of his first Dunlop Series win.

“It was definitely on the bucket-list and it’s obviously my first V8 Supercar win, so it’s a pretty special moment.

“We had a PB at Perth with fouth, so to run third here and be right with those front guys was good enough in itself, and it obviously fell into my hands a little bit and I just picked up the pieces – it’s pretty awesome.”

Walsh picked up 50 points for taking 19th place due to the contact, condensing his series lead over Paul Dumbrell to a close 17 points, who effectively finished the race in second.

“I was covering into the last corner, Cam was a comfortable margin behind me, not close enough to pass and just turned it and got a bit hit, I didn’t really expect it, and then got collected by a few cars on the way through,” Walsh said of the incident.

“I don’t really know why he wanted to do that, it doesn’t look good for him.

“The car was really good and I was just controlling the pace of the race throughout and it was really good on the restarts, I was looking after the tyres… but, we’ve got a good car so tomorrow should be pretty good.

“Hopefully nothing is too badly bent.”

Waters’s felt the time penalty that saw the #56 entry relegated to 21st place was unwarranted, but is confident the ENZED Falcon can redeem itself in tomorrow’s qualifying session.

“It was the last lap, last corner, I braked in my normal spot and Ash was probably breaking a little bit earlier and then it closed up a little bit quicker than I expected,” he said.

“He went kind of mid-track and I had no where to go, so I went to the inside and kind of locked the rears but we were too far into the corner by that stage and we both had to turn.

“I probably don’t think I deserve that but I haven’t seen the footage yet.

“We know we have a good qualifying car so that’s always a bonus, but we’ve just got to tune our race car up.”

The restructure of the finishing order saw Kiwi Andre Heimgartner complete the top three, followed by Aaren Russell and Steven Johnson in fifth.

Dean Fiore was moved up to sixth place, while Geoff Emery, Todd Hazelwood, Ant Pedersen and Macauley Jones rounded out the top 10.

Click here for the full results.

The Dunlop Series qualify for race 2 tomorrow morning at 9.25am AEST.