SVG closes in on title
SHANE van Gisbergen has got one hand on the Supercars trophy after his rival Jamie Whincup has failed to make any inroads into his championship lead.
The two Red Bull Racing drivers won a race each at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint yesterday, meaning the Kiwi keeps his 148-point lead in the championship.
They were the two dominant drivers around the 2.91km course, starting both races on the front row in their Holden Commodores and also finishing each of them first and second.
But with a maximum of just 450 points left to battle for this season, as there’s only the Sydney round after this, Whincup needs not only to finish well in the four remaining races, but also for van Gisbergen to pick up a couple of DNFs.
However, even though his prospects are looking slim, Whincup has vowed to keep fighting to the end.
‘‘We’ll go right through to the last lap on Sunday at Homebush,’’ Whincup said. ‘‘It’s definitely game on for both of us, people pay good money to come to the track and watch a good, old fashioned battle, between two fast cars going at it hard.
‘‘So we’ll make sure we keep that up right to the end.’’
There wasn’t a huge amount of action up the front of either race, with Whincup winning the first and van Gisbergen the second.
But at one point in the latter race, there was some of the most thrilling action of the season as for the second half the first lap Whincup and van Gisbergen were side by side, before the Kiwi won out.
‘‘To get the start is critical and I didn’t quite get the start I got in race one, but then certainly I had a bit of a crack and it’s great to be able to race hard and fair. At the end of the day there were plenty of happy Kiwis on the hill.’’
As well as this being a successful day for van Gisbergen, it was also a good one for Scott McLaughlin, who finished third and seventh in the races.
He is chasing Craig Lowndes for third place in the championship, who placed 16th and 15th and Lowndes’ advantage is down to 22 points.
‘‘The best I’ve ever finished is fifth and I’d love to try to get third, especially to get Lowndsy and split these three [Triple Eight] guys up,’’ McLaughlin said.
‘‘GRM, we’ve worked hard all year and have probably had our most consistent run to date, it would be a pretty cool thing.’’
Fabian Coulthard was 11th and fourth over the races and said overtaking was an issue. ‘‘It is very hard to get close enough to pass here with the high speed corners,’’ he said.
‘‘You burn the rear tyres up trying make spots but at some point you have to protect your position. Frosty (Mark Winterbottom) was running behind me and had exactly the same problem as I had chasing Chaz (Mostert).
‘‘This style of sprint racing works at some tracks but I am not too sure it works that well here.’’
Organisers did away with pitstops for the Pukekohe races this year and put on shorter races, which has taken the strategy out of the racing and it’s something that other drivers aren’t happy with.
‘‘I personally don’t like it,’’ McLaughlin said. ‘‘I understand why we do it, to save costs, fuel rigs and all that sort of stuff.
‘‘But I think a strategy always mixes it up, but at the end of the day we’ve got to think about the teams as well.
‘‘What we’ve done this weekend is to help the cashflow, especially coming to these flyaway races. The races we’ve had over the years have been a testament to the series and when you come out here and come back to the old way of how we used to, it’s obvious why we changed.’’