Coulthard breaks Supercars drought
SCOTT McLaughlin suffered a startline shocker as Ford’s forgotten man Fabian Coulthard emerged from the shadows to break a 274- day victory drought in yesterday’s Supercars race at Winton Raceway.
Overshadowed by his championship- challenging DJR/ Team Penske teammate McLaughlin so far in 2018, Coulthard got his season back on track with a blistering beginning.
Despite starting from pole, McLaughlin plummeted from first to seventh to severely hamper his hopes of a race win.
Although he recovered to finish third, McLaughlin’s pain was Coulthard’s gain as he got the better of his teammate and then held off Holden’s Shane van Gisbergen to claim his first Supercars win since last August.
“I can’t thank the guys enough,’’ Coulthard said after recording his 10th career win. “The Shell V- Power car was really on rails today and it was a big effort by everyone.’’
A day after Nissan claimed an upset win in the weekend’s first race, Coulthard put Ford back on top as McLaughlin faltered.
“What happened at the start to Scotty was unfortunate,’’ Coulthard said. “It would have been nice to have two Shell cars going through the first couple of corners together. But it wasn’t to be but to get one and three is a pretty cool moment.’’
Van Gisbergen recovered from a poor qualifying effort to finish second after starting the race in seventh.
“I haven’t driven that hard for a long time,’’ the Red Bull Holden driver said. “It is so awesome pushing that hard all the way and the car was just fantastic. We got top points, so it was a good weekend.’’
McLaughlin continued his qualifying blitz by winning another pole to move past Allan Moffat on the alltime list of one- lap victories with 40.
In another perfect display of allout speed, the wunderkind clocked a 1min 19.0200sec to edge teammate Coulthard as the team scored yet another front- row lock out.
“It’s nice,” he said. “It’s great for the team at Shell V- Power Racing, another front- row lockout.”
But McLaughlin’s joy turned to pain when the race launched to life with the pole- sitter plummeting from first to seventh.
In a costly blunder, the Ford driver missed the jump and was swamped by six cars.
Coulthard pounced to take the lead and powered away as Michael Caruso and Rick Kelly gave chase in their much- improved Nissans.
McLaughlin pitted on lap four in a bold strategy play that brought him back into the race. Short filling for track- position, the championship leader belted out a series of clean- air laps to jump his way back to second following the first round of stops.
Van Gisbergen passed the championship leader following the final lap to push him into third.
“I have had some pretty bad starts in my time,’’ McLaughlin said. “I will take my good ones and learn from this one. I just stuffed up. Congrats to Fabian and it was awesome for both him and the team. We will move forward.’’
McLaughlin leads van Gisbergen by 131 points in the championship race.