Champ to remain Red Bull at a gate
SHANE van Gisbergen has declared he will not change his all-out attacking style despite falling off the pace in his bid to win back-to-back Supercars drivers’ titles.
The Red Bull Holden Racing ace has won four races this season to be the equal most successful driver.
But he sits in fourth place in the championship, 162 points behind third-placed teammate Jamie Whincup, who has not won a race.
Van Gisbergen is 178 points adrift of series leader, DJR Team Penske’s Fabian
RUGBY UNION Coulthard. After starting the year in red-hot form, van Gisbergen’s season has become marked by inconsistency, including a DNF last round in Darwin.
But the Kiwi rubbished talk of blunting his relentlessly attacking driving style in a bid to reduce the risk.
“No, I will just race the same,’’ van Gisbergen said.
“I will race as fast as I can and as hard and aggressive as possible without making mistakes.
“I have always done that while also trying to be fair and I will continue doing that.
“And hopefully I am able
BASKETBALL to get the best possible result. I have driven (aggressively) for 10 or 15 years now and I am going to keep on doing the same. I don’t know any other way to drive.’’
Van Gisbergen admitted his poor run of results has put him under pressure to chase down the leading Ford duo of Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin when the championship resumes at the Townsville SuperSprint this weekend.
“I am in catch-up mode,’’ he said.
“And I think we will have to push to the end. The plan is to go flat out until the Gold
GOLF Coast and see where we are after that. Hopefully we are in contention and we will analyse it after the endurance rounds and come up with a new plan to get us to the end.’’
Van Gisbergen’s focus is on getting the Red Bull cars as competitive as possible.
“Right now it is team first,’’ he said.
“All three cars are working as hard as possible to be quicker than those other two (Penske) cars.
“We need our car to be better than theirs and more consistent and then you push for your personal gain later.
“Jamie is trying to win races just like me. He isn’t trying to (just) be consistent.
“But we need to get our cars better because we are not the quickest team this year.
“We had a really good test day and made some gains but we still aren’t there yet.’’
Van Gisbergen could be left ruing a spate of blown tyres, the latest of which resulted in him failing in the first race at Hidden Valley last month.
“I was annoyed,’’ he said. “But it is a fine balance finding the limit with the tyres at the moment.
“We need to tune the car to make it last on that tyre.’’
SOCCER