The opening race of the Australian Supercars Championship round at Hidden Valley has seen Shell V-Power Racing’s Scott McLauhlin take a narrow victory over fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen from Red Bull Holden Racing. Pole seater David Reynolds came home in third.
“I’m glad I didn’t have a heart rate monitor on – I would have blown the thing off the scale,” commented McLaughlin! “Thanks to everyone at Shell V-Power Racing Team, they put a lot of faith in me to bring it home today, and thankfully I did. I wanted that win really bad to repay all the hard work the boys have been doing behind the scenes, and for it to be the 100th win for the team makes it a really great day.”
Starting second, McLaughlin settled into the second position for the opening stint of the race behind polesitter David Reynolds.
The pit stops started on lap six, with McLaughlin taking his first stop on lap seven. The team changed right side tyres only, with McLaughlin emerging as the effective leader in front of Nissan’s Rick Kelly.
McLaughlin was back up to p10 on lap 17, and continued his charge back to the lead as the pit stop cycle continued. McLaughlin was challenged late in the race by Shane van Gisbergen, who pitted on lap 20 and was using much fresher tyres to charge through the pack. He got within half a second of McLaughlin by lap 33, but McLaughlin drove well and was able to hold him off to take the team’s 100th all-time victory.
“We couldn’t quite get Scotty (McLaughlin),” said van Gisbergen. “Everything just got hot and he was driving well, placing the car nicely but as soon as we caught up, the heat here just causes the tyres to overheat and everything got hot and I lost grip. We tried to have a tyre differential so we could have enough grip to pass him but it wasn’t to be.”
Coulthard’s race saw him start 14th. He got up to 10th position on lap one, and continued to push through the pack, pitting from fifth on lap 12, rejoining in 18th. He was back into 14th place late in the race, however as he began to struggle with tyre life, those who stopped late were able to push past Coulthard to see the No.12 driver finish 15th.
McLaughlin now leads the Championship by 143 points from Shane van Gisbergen. Coulthard remains seventh. The team now leads the Teams’ points by 69 points from Triple Eight Race Engineering.
DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Scott McLaughlin 1637
2. Shane Van Gisbergen 1494
3. David Reynolds 1298
4. Craig Lowndes 1284
5. Scott Pye 1234
6. Jamie Whincup 1213
7. Fabian Coulthard 1139
8. Rick Kelly 1105
9. Tim Slade 1055
10. Chaz Mostert 1040
TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Shell V-Power Racing Team 2776
2. Triple Eight Race Engineering (Whincup/SVG) 2707
3. Walkinshaw Andretti United 2263
4. Brad Jones Racing 2031
5. Erebus Motorsport 1990
6. Tickford Racing (Mostert/Winterbottom) 1975
7. Nissan Motorsport (Kelly/Heimgartner) 1824
8. NISMO (Caruso/De Silvestro) 1457
9. Garry Rogers Motorsport 1424
10. Triple Eight Race Engineering (Lowndes) 1284
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