McLaughlin wins in fizzer
Scott McLaughlin is the 2018 Supercars champion, finishing second in yesterday’s race at the Newcastle 500, behind David Reynolds.
His rival for the title, fellow Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, finished fourth and what looked to be an epic final race of the season turned out to be a bit of a fizzer.
McLaughlin becomes the fourth New Zealander to win this category, joining Jim Richards, Robbie Francevic and Shane van Gisbergen and after coming so close last year, there was a huge sense of relief from McLaughlin to realise his dream.
The real drama came early in the day when it was announced van Gisbergen had been given a 25-second penalty for a pit lane refuelling incident in Saturday’s race, with the car still taking on fuel while it was being dropped to the ground. It meant van Gisbergen was stripped of his win and relegated to fifth, with McLaughlin promoted to being the race winner.
Instead of being two points behind McLaughlin, he was 53 in deficit and a top six finish would guarantee McLaughlin the title.
A fired up van Gisbergen was furious with receiving the penalty.
‘‘The bloody series took it away from us, that’s s..t,’’ said van Gisbergen after qualifying.
Given McLaughlin had failed to finish in the top six just once in the last 22 races, it was looking good for the 25-year-old Kiwi.
But he was in a better position 12 months ago, only needing to finish in the top 11, and blew it.
However, McLaughlin has matured a lot over the past year and all week in Newcastle has looked to embrace this big occasion rather than be nervous by it.
As it played out, the penalty suffered by van Gisbergen didn’t have any significant impact on the title battle.
With 21 laps to go, the inner guards of van Gisbergen’s car started to come away, but he was able to carry on.
The only point of interest left was whether Reynolds would overtake McLaughlin for the win and with five laps to go McLaughlin let him past.
Andre Heimgartner finished sixth, for his best ever Supercars result, which will no doubt help his chances of getting a seat somewhere next year.