Fabian Coulthard has won the latest Virgin Australia Supercars race at the Sydney Motorsport Park. A clash between Couthard’s Shell V-Power Racing Ford team mate Scott McLaughlin and Red Bull Holden Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen enabled Coulthard to score victory in Race 17 at the Red Rooster Sydney SuperSprint.
“There’s lots that can go right, and lots that can go wrong in our sport and today was a great example of that,” commented Coulthard. “I’ve had a great result, but it’s a shame for Scott to have some issues. The Shell V-Power Racing Team did a great job with strategy and pit stops for me today, and when the Safety Car came out I felt confident of a good result. Great to get another win, and we’ll aim to do the same again tomorrow.”
Having lost the lead off the start, McLaughlin retained the lead k through the pit stop strategy. A late race restart that is under review by the stewards lead to an incident between McLaughlin and Van Gisbergen at turn two, which meant Scott received a 15-second time penalty.
“Scotty (McLaughlin) pitted so we covered him,” said van Gisbergen. “We were just cruising along, the safety car came out, I got Scotty at the restart, then he just drilled me into turn two. That was a shame, it ruined our day, but he came straight down and apologised, so all good.”
“The safety car wasn’t great for us, and the restart was a weird one,” commented McLaughlin. “We’ll have to look at the rule book there. Heading into turn two I made a bad judgement, made an error and got a penalty. When you do the crime, you’ve got to do the time. The best part about our sport is that I get to have another shot and try again tomorrow.”
He crossed the line second, but dropped to 10th once the penalty was applied. He continues to lead the Championship by 80 points from Jamie Whincup.
Earlier in the day McLaughlin wrapped up the season-long ARMOR ALL Pole Champion award for 2017 by topping qualifying ahead of Race 17 at the Red Rooster Sydney SuperSprint.
McLaughlin set a new qualifying record of 1:28.32s to record his 12th pole of the season.
DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Scott McLaughlin 1974
2. Jamie Whincup 1896
3. Fabian Coulthard 1813
4. Shane Van Gisbergen 1695
5. Chaz Mostert 1683
6. Mark Winterbottom 1455
7. Craig Lowndes 1413
8. David Reynolds 1311
9. Garth Tander 1296
10. Cameron Waters 1255
TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Shell V-Power Racing Team 3822
2. Triple Eight Race Engineering (Whincup/Van Gisbergen) 3591
3. Prodrive Racing Australia (Winterbottom/Waters) 2745
4. Garry Rogers Motorsport 2325
5. Erebus Motorsport 1896
6. Brad Jones Racing 1866
7. Walkinshaw Racing 1827
8. Nissan Motorsport (R. Kelly/T. Kelly) 1785
9. Prodrive Racing Australia (Mostert) 1683
10. Nissan NISMO (Caruso/De Silvestro) 1602
Comments