McLaughlin continues to lead after Supercars round in Darwin

Scott McLaughlin continues to lead rival Jamie Whincup after the latest round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship in Darwin. The BetEasy Darwin Triple Crown produced three difference winners with Penrite Racing’s Anton De Pasquale scoring his maiden Supercars race win in a wild opening Race 13.

De Pasquale led home James Courtney having both used two sets of soft tyres during a race that ran time certain, four laps short of its intended duration.

Jamie Whincup was third on the road but dropped to 17th thanks to a 15-second time penalty for an unsafe pit release, handing Scott Pye the final podium place.

In Race 14 McLaughlin extended his Virgin Australia Supercars Championship lead with a commanding win in the second leg, ahead of Whincup and team mate Fabian Coulthard.

“For me, today was a good bounce back,” commented McLaughlin. “Last night I was mentally down, and I don’t take mistakes like that well, especially when I had a fast car. So it was nice to bounce back today.”

“Two poles, a win and a second is basically the closest I can get to perfect so I’m really happy and hopefully we can carry this into next week.”

In the final race 15, of the weekend, Whincup held off Scott McLaughlin in a tense finale securing the race and round honours.

“We had a great battle on track today,” commented Whincup. “We just kept chipping away at the car all weekend and made it fastest for race three.

“I thought after yesterday’s penalty we were done and dusted for the Triple Crown, but it was fantastic to have a great day and get a win for the team. Dave Cauchi (Race Engineer, Car #88) and the team behind the scenes did a fantastic job.

“We were having a good battle with Car #17 and we knew the race would come down to the pit stops. We didn’t want to hand them the win, and we wanted to attack as hard as we could and that’s exactly what we did.

“We raced hard, got the win, and we’ll celebrate tonight with a few hard-earned drinks before we prepare for another tough weekend up here in Darwin.”

Overall Standings

1/ Scott McLaughlin 1024 points
2/ Jamie Whincup 923
3/ Chaz Mostert 814
4/ Shane van Gisbergen 753
5/ David Reynolds
also
9/ Fabian Coulthard 682
11/ Andre Heimgartner 602

Race 13 results (Top 10)

Class.DriverGap
1Anton de Pasquale
2James Courtney0.83
3Scott Pye6.12
4Mark Winterbottom11.19
5Chris Pither11.44
6Fabian Coulthard11.74
7Chaz Mostert12.45
8Cameron Waters13.03
9Andre Heimgartner13.33
10Lee Holdsworth14.07

Race 14 results (Top 10)

1Scott McLaughlin
2Jamie Whincup1.40
3Fabian Coulthard7.20
4Shane van Gisbergen12.44
5David Reynolds13.29
6Nick Percat17.17
7Anton de Pasquale17.53
8Chaz Mostert18.01
9Cameron Waters18.61
10Andre Heimgartner19.02

Race 15 results (Top 10)

Class.DriverGap
1 Jamie Whincup 
2 Scott McLaughlin2.122
3 Shane van Gisbergen14.356
4 Chaz Mostert17.259
5 Fabian Coulthard17.759
6 Nick Percat22.615
7 Mark Winterbottom22.983
8 Jack Le Brocq23.858
9 David Reynolds25.469
10 Rick Kelly26.691

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