Van Gisbergen win heats up title battle

BRISBANE: The gloves are officially off in the Supercars title fight after Shane van Gisbergen hit back at series leader Scott McLaughlin in yesterday’s Ipswich SuperSprint at Queensland Raceway.

Holden’s van Gisbergen got the jump on polesitter McLaughlin at the start of the Ipswich round’s 200km finale, and went on claim the chequered flag more than 2sec ahead of the Ford star.

Ford’s Chaz Mostert was third, his first podium since last October’s Gold Coast 600.

The stage is now set for a championship dogfight between 2016 series winner van Gisbergen and McLaughlin, who narrowly missed claiming his debut drivers’ title last year.

Van Gisbergen’s fourth win of the year has whittled McLaughlin’s series lead down to just 131 points with seven of the season’s 16 rounds remaining.

‘‘That [start] dictates the race here,’’ van Gisbergen said.

‘‘If we start up there [front] we can race with them [McLaughlin’s Ford].

‘‘The cars are very even but we are missing something in qualifying consistency. We needed to get that start.

‘‘But I am enjoying the title fight.’’

It was a shot in the arm for van Gisbergen, after McLaughlin appeared unstoppable at Ipswich.

McLaughlin claimed pole before leading Saturday’s 39lap race from start to finish to beat van Gisbergen home by more than 4sec.

And the flying Kiwi looked set to deliver more of the same in Sunday’s 65lap race after again gaining pole position.

It was his 10th pole of the year in 20 races, taking his career haul to 43, equal third overall on the all time list with Craig Lowndes.

But van Gisbergen was not to be denied yesterday.

The next round is the Sydney SuperNight 300 on August 34. — AAP