Shane van Gisbergen extended his unbeaten run in 2021 to five races following another dominant performance at the Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint, the second round of the Repco Supercars Championship.
Van Gisbergen scored his 45th career win in Sunday afternoon’s Race 5, which was run entirely in wet conditions. Earlier in the day, he claimed his fourth victory having already secured pole position in qualifying.
“It was treacherous conditions all day to be honest, especially for the first race today,” commented van Gisbergen. “I didn’t have much grip at the start of the first race and dropped to third, but then the car started to find it’s groove. Chaz (Mostert) was super aggressive at the start and I had a great battle with him which was a lot of fun.
“Once we got to the front, my car got better and better and we made the perfect call to pit and change tyres; it was conservative, but we weren’t really undercut by anyone around us, so it worked really well.
” Once we came out of the pits, it was all about managing the car and being safe. For the second race, it was super wet at the start and really hard knowing what the grip would be like, but again the car was great. I pulled a bit of a lead on Brodie (Kostecki) so he wasn’t really close enough to pressure us, but I definitely saw him coming and I knew I had to take a bit more of a risk, which we did. I had the car to really push when I needed to.
“This weekend is honestly a dream result which probably no one thought was going to happen, including myself. I knew right from the first lap on the first day when I started hitting the curbs that I was going to be ok, and then it was about making the car better. Chris Brady (Team Physio) was awesome all weekend managing my pain as well – I can’t thank him enough. It was a super awesome weekend for the team.”
In Race 4 (of the championship) Cameron Waters came home second with Jamie Whincup third. Kiwis’ Andre Heimgartner finished fifth, Fabian Coulthard 17th.
Race 5 saw van Gisbergen win ahead of Brodie Kostecki (Erebus) with David Renoyds (Penrite Racing) third. Heimgatner finished 11th while Coulthard came home in 20th.
Van Gisbergen sits on 605 points, 150 ahead of team mate Jamie Whincup (455 points) with Chaz Mostert on 442pts.
The Repco Supercars Championship heads to Tasmania the weekend after Easter (10-11 April) for the Beaurepaires Tasmania SuperSprint in Tasmania.
Comments