Shane van Gisbergen has won the opening Repco Supercars Championship race at the Bunnings Trade Perth SuperNight at the Wanneroo Raceway in Perth, Australia. The win is his first in Western Australia and marks his 61st victory and the 600th for the Holden brand.
“It’s good to finally win in Perth,” commented van Gisbergen. “The car has been so good today – I haven’t had such a good car at this place in both qualifying and the race.
“I was a bit worried at the start because Anton (de Pasquale) and Cam (Waters) were very quick, and I wasn’t saving my tyres at all – I was pushing really hard, so I was a bit worried. They pulled away then they came back a bit and then pitted. I was surprised by how much tyre life I had so I kept going.
“The car felt a bit funky putting two tyres on that late, especially the way it was braking, and I was a bit right-hand-down for a while, but it was a really cool win. It was cool to win for Holden and General Motors. Obviously, Holden isn’t with us anymore, but it’s still great to represent them in their final year on the Supercars grid. It was super cool racing back under lights as well.
“It’s difficult to see in some areas, but much better then in 2019. When you’re following someone and you see all of the sparks coming out of their brakes and seeing disks glowing coming out of the corners is awesome. Hopefully we put on a good show for all of the fans out there tonight.”
Van Gisbergen ran a longer stint relative to pole sitter Anton De Pasquale and Cam Waters who finished second and third.
“It is always good to get a pole,” said De Pasquale. “It’s obviously a good place to start but you want to be able to convert that in the race because that’s where you get points and that’s what you get trophies for. Obviously, we have a really good qualifying car and our race car was quite good today too, just not good enough.”
David Reynolds came home fifth ahead of Broc Feeney, with Will Davison climbing from 12th to sixth.
Van Gisbergen opened up his championship lead over De Pasquale to 157 points. Cars will return to the track on Sunday morning for dual qualifying sessions for Races 11 and 12.
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