Van Gisbergen halts Ford’s winning streak

Shane van Gisbergen won the second leg of the Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint to halt the Ford Mustang’s winning run. Second home was Ford driver Fabian Coulthard who now moves into second overall to Shell V-Power Racing team mate Scott McLaughlin. Third was David Reynolds for Penrite Racing.

“Great weekend obviously finishing it with a win,” commented van Gisbergen. “All weekend we were speedy, and the car was nice to drive. I think we certainly learnt a lot with different philosophies throughout the event. Hopefully as a team, we can keep stepping it up for Phillip Island. It will no doubt be interesting to see where we are at for that event but after this weekend we are defiantly doing better than where we started.”

Van Gisbergen reclaimed the lead early in the second half of the 84-lap race and went on to win by 5.1877 seconds.

Coulthard and McLaughlin slotted into second and fourth respectively for the opening laps with both maintaining position through to the first pit stops, with McLaughlin heading in early on lap 15. Coulthard took his first stop on lap 24, peeling out right in front of McLaughlin. They then drove to the front of the pack as everyone took their second stops.

Coulthard jumped Van Gisbergen as the latter pitted, with McLaughlin slotting in behind. The three would battle like this for several laps.

It began to rain lightly at this stage, with Van Gisbergen able to get by Coulthard and David Reynolds passing McLaughlin to relegate them to second and fourth.

They stayed in those positions across the final stops and last stint of the race, with a good battle between Coulthard and Reynolds occurring in the back end of the race as light rain started to fall. Coulthard held him off to take his second podium of the weekend.

McLaughlin continues to lead the championship, with Coulthard now up to second, 124 points back. The team continues to lead the Teams’ title by 232 over Triple Eight.

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