McLaughlin in charge at Townsville SuperSprint

Another win for Scott McLaughlin has extended his lead in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. The Robson Civil Projects Townsville SuperSprint got underway with McLaughlin taking the ARMOR ALL Pole position and effectively leading the race for a lights to flag victory.

Second home was Cameron Waters, who proved best-of-the-rest in Tickford Racing’s Monster Energy Mustang.

Like Waters, Chaz Mostert made it three podiums from his last four starts in third, while Jamie Whincup climbed from his lowly seventh on the grid to fourth.

“It was a very solid day, and we followed all our processes and achieved everything we wanted to in practice with the car,” commented McLaughlin. It gave me some confidence going into qualifying.

“We had a great qualifying car today, which is something we really worked on all week. We didn’t touch the race car from last week. I was able to put it on pole in qualifying, which was great.

“Then the race was solid. We have a good start and a good pit stop, and it turned out to be a really good day, so I’m happy.”

McLaughlin’s nearest rival Shane van Gisbergen suffered a mechanical on lap 22 and after spilling oil over the track and was forced to make a second stop for repairs. He was given a black flag after he rejoined the race because his car continued to spill oil across the track. It was day-over for him.

“The race was going well, and the car felt good,” commented van Gisbergen. “I’m not too sure what our strategy was but unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to find out; the power steering let go at turn 10 so we were lucky not to end up with a damaged car, but hopefully we can fix the power steering rack for tomorrow’s two races.”

McLaughlin continues to lead the Championship by 143 points over Red Bull’s Jamie Whincup. Coulthard remains in 7th. The Shell V-Power Racing Teams takes back the lead over Red Bull HRT in the Teams Championship by 68 points.

Race 22 Results