Why Whincup is relaxed about getting dominated by van Gisbergen
SUPERCARS great Jamie Whincup concedes he has been “dusted” by teammate Shane van Gisbergen this year but has vowed to take the title fight up to the flying Kiwi in his quest for an unprecedented eighth – and final – V8 crown.
In his final year as a full-time Supercars driver before he steps into team management at Triple Eight, Whincup said this year’s championship was the 2020 Bathurst champion’s to lose after his dominant start to the 2021 campaign.
Van Gisbergen won six of the opening eight races to establish a 139-point lead in the Supercars championship over Whincup ahead of this weekend’s round at Tailem Bend in South Australia.
The New Zealand star is now within two victories of the late great Peter Brock’s mark of 48 career wins.
While rating his own form as “solid”, Whincup said van Gisbergen
had been a class above the rest of the field but had not let it dent his own championship hopes.
“My teammate has done an unbelievably good job and won the first six, so I am the best of the rest at the moment, but we are all getting dusted fairly heavily by SVG,” the seven-time champion said.
“I’m pretty relaxed about it. It’s not like I’m tearing my hair out that my teammate has beaten me six out of eight times.
“I’m pretty comfortable with where I am at the moment, as far as my year and my career as a whole.
“I’m enjoying it and I’m happy that I’ve been able to win a race and hopefully I can win a few more before the year’s out.
“At the moment though it is Shane’s (championship) to lose. He’s won six out of eight so he is absolutely in the box seat and it’s up to everybody else to try to grind away.
“There are still a lot of races to go but it is certainly his to lose at the moment.”