McLaughlin noses in front
Scott McLaughlin moved back into the lead in the Supercars championship after winning the Phillip Island 500 yesterday.
The 24-year-year-old Kiwi won the 57-lap race, getting past his nemesis Jamie Whincup 16 laps from the finish, and now holds a one-point lead in the championship.
The whole race was a duel between McLaughlin and Whincup, and that could well be the case for the rest of the season for the championship.
Fabian Coulthard qualified on the front row, alongside his teammate McLaughlin, but it was later ruled there had been an illegal rear wing adjustment on his Ford Falcon, so was demoted to last on the grid.
Bumped up to the front row, Whincup drove around the outside of McLaughlin on the second corner of the race, to take the lead.
The race then settled down, with Whincup building a lead of over a second on McLaughlin, who was almost 2sec ahead of the thirdplaced Shane van Gisbergen.
The 2016 Supercars champion came in for a pit stop on the 17th lap complaining of problems with his steering pump, but had no choice but to battle on.
On the 18th lap Whincup and McLaughlin were bumper-tobumper when they both pitted for their first stops and the Australian managed to come out still ahead.
It wasn’t until lap 27 that McLaughlin got close to Whincup again. McLaughlin was clearly faster, but never got an opportunity to overtake.
It became inevitable that he’d wait until the second pit stop and on lap 31 they were both in.
Once more Whincup beat the Kiwi out of pit lane, so to win the race McLaughlin would have to pull out an overtaking manoeuvre.
On lap 41, McLaughlin went for it, diving inside Whincup and, even though he took a tighter line around the sweeping bend, he went into the lead.
Once in front, McLaughlin was never threatened.
Rick Kelly, in his 500th Supercars race, was an impressive third in the Nissan Altima.
Van Gisbergen finished fourth, losing more points to Whincup and McLaughlin.
Six laps from the end, van Gisbergen allowed his Triple Eight team-mate Craig Lowndes to go past him to try to overtake Kelly as, without any power steering, he had little chance himself of doing so.
Lowndes tried to close the gap on Kelly, but once it became clear he wouldn’t be able to get onto the podium, he was ordered to let van Gisbergen have fourth place back, something he was less than happy about.
Coulthard was 13th, Andre Heimgartner 15th and Richie Stanaway 19th.