Whincup wins ahead of Kiwis
Jamie Whincup won yesterday’s race at the Gold Coast 600, with Kiwis Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin filling the other positions on the podium.
It was a race without the controversial moments or spectacular crashes like Saturday, but it produced outstanding driving performances from van Gisbergen and McLaughlin, who both stormed through the field.
Van Gisbergen’s lead in the championship is now 148 points over Whincup.
But as he went into the week with a 139-point advantage, he’s extended that advantage and with just the Pukekohe and Sydney rounds to go, it looks even more likely van Gisbergen will win his first title.
None of the main game drivers were in their cars at the start and the only incident at the beginning of the race was David Russell putting his car into a wall and ripping most of the panels off the front of the car.
The Red Bull Racing co-drivers, Paul Dumbrell and Alex Premat, built themselves a big lead over the rest over the early laps.
But the pivotal moment in the race came when there was a crash for Super Black Racing on lap 14. Richie Stanaway planted the nose of his car into the concrete wall after trying to overtake Jack Perkins, who clipped him from the front and it broke the steering of the Ford Falcon.
This triggered a safety car and ended the young Kiwi driver’s stint in Supercars for the endurance round on a sour note.
The mass pit stop didn’t work out well for car No 97 as Premat had to double stack in the pits and rejoined the race in 11th place.
While almost everyone jumped into the pits, the Volvo cars stayed out, hoping that a different strategy would pay off. Given that McLaughlin made it onto the podium, you’d have to say it did.
Ten laps later Aaren Russell, Andre Heimgartner’s co-driver, was punted into a wall by Kiwi Craig Baird, which brought to an end their prospects of a good finish.
With 41 laps to go, all the cars doing the non-Volvo strategy had made their final pit stops, with the main game drivers getting in the cars.
It left McLaughlin in front, Michael Caruso second and Whincup third, while van Gisbergen ninth. But McLaughlin needed to come in on lap 64 for more fuel to get him home and went back out in 11th place.
Like in Saturday’s race, van Gisbergen made a march through the field and with 30 laps to go was up to fifth place. With 23 laps from the finish, Caruso had to come in for fuel, leaving Whincup in the lead.
Eighteen laps from the end, van Gisbergen was up to second and McLaughlin fourth as the charge of the Kiwis continued.
McLaughlin got past Mark Winterbottom, to move to third position seven laps from the end, but he had no chance of closing down the two Red Bull Racing cars.