The stage is set for an intense title showdown in Newcastle after Jamie Whincup led home archrival Scott McLaughlin in the second leg of the ITM Auckland SuperSprint.
After a race-long battle between the pair, the Red Bull Holden lead the Shell Ford home by 5.9 seconds, securing Whincup the Jason Richards Trophy for the most points over the weekend.
McLaughlin was pushing hard for success in front of his home crowd today, missing pole position by a tiny five-hundredths of a second to Whincup.
“Today started with qualifying when, just before the last set of tyres, we were in P7 and car #17 (McLaughlin) was P1 so we had to dig deep, take a risk, and make changes to the car – it was fantastic,” commented Whincup.
“It’s been a fair drought but it was all about getting off the line and I got off the line well and then just pushed on, just pushed it. I turned the rear vision mirror around and just went as hard as I could for 70 laps. The car was great. We are feeling the pressure of performance, those guys have got more performance on us without a doubt, but all we can do is maximise our setup. I feel we did that today and gave ourselves an opportunity to get the grand prize, but as I can’t stress enough it’s only an opportunity, no more than that. It’s all going to come down to what job we do in three weeks’ time.”
McLaughlin’s DJR Penske Racing team took an aggressive approach on fuel strategy, however raw pace was lacking and McLaughlin had to settle for his second podium of the weekend. He missed winning the JR Trophy by only three points, and is now 30 points behind Whincup, sitting second in the Championship heading into the Newcastle 500 – the final race weekend of the season.
“Happy with how the weekend has played out,” commented McLaughlin. “I’ve kept myself in contention with two podiums this weekend, only 30 points behind heading into Newcastle. Disappointed that I couldn’t get a win in front of my home crowd, but we’ll take the fight to the last race.”
Fifth place leaves Fabian Coulthard 176 behind, while difficult days for Chaz Mostert and Shane van Gisbergen have all but ruled them out, both more than 260 adrift.
Disaster struck for Mostert later in the lap as an attempted pass from Cam Waters on Mark Winterbottom forced The Bottle-O entry into its Supercheap stable-mate.
Mostert spun to the back of the field, while Winterbottom was amongst others to suffer a delay, dropping outside the top 20.
From there it was all about the top two, with McLaughlin shadowing Whincup until lap nine when, 1.7s adrift, he attempted an undercut by pitting.
Whincup covered by stopping a lap later and, retaining the lead, continued to show the way until the Red Bull team triggered the second stops on lap 36.
McLaughlin this time pitted a lap later and, having been 1.6s adrift before the stops, rejoined temporarily in front, only for the Holden to sweep around the outside at Turn 1.
The Shell Ford continued to stalk Whincup until the leader begin the ease away in the closing stages – the margin blowing out by more than three seconds in the last five laps as McLaughlin was forced to save fuel.
Waters escaped damage in his early hit on Winterbottom to finish third, his first podium in a single-driver Supercars event, but the incident will be investigated post-race.
Saturday winner van Gisbergen’s championship charge fell apart in bizarre circumstances, nailing the back of Tim Slade’s Holden at pit entry on lap 16.
“I made a mistake coming into pit lane behind Tim (Slade), he was quite cautious, which he’s allowed to be, and I misjudged it,” said van Gisbergen. “It would’ve been fine if he wasn’t there, but he just over-slowed and I couldn’t stop in time and ran up the back of him causing a lot of damage.”
The Red Bull team repaired extensive front-end damage to ensure the Kiwi returned to score some points in 24th.
Yesterday’s second-placed finisher Winterbottom was just five places further ahead having served a drive-through for speeding in pitlane while trying to recover from his opening lap incident.
James Courtney and Lee Holdsworth were the only retirements, with both Holdens having taken front-end damage in a concertina triggered by the three-car Prodrive incident.
DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Jamie Whincup 2850
2. Fabian Coulthard 2820
3. Scott McLaughlin 2674
4. Chaz Mostert 2586
5. Shane van Gisbergen 2574
6. Craig Lowndes 2160
7. Cameron Waters 2071
8. Mark Winterbottom 2058
9. Garth Tander 2028
10. David Reynolds 1956
TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1. Shell V-Power Racing Team 5529
2. Triple Eight Race Engineering (Whincup/Van Gisbergen) 5424
3. Prodrive Racing Australia (Winterbottom/Waters) 4164
4. Garry Rogers Motorsport 3504
5. Erebus Motorsport 3141
6. Walkinshaw Racing 3030
7. Nissan Motorsport (R. Kelly/T. Kelly) 2949
8. Brad Jones Racing 2850
9. Prodrive Racing Australia (Mostert) 2634
10. Nissan NISMO (Caruso/De Silvestro) 2586
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