McLaughlin closes gap with Darwin victory
Winless Whincup left frustrated with his fifth second-place finish of the season
New Zealand driver Scott McLaughlin took advantage of his pole position start to ease away to victory in yesterday’s Supercars race at Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin.
The win was McLaughlin’s fourth of the season and the 11th of his career while it has seen him draw within 10 championship points of his Shell V-Power teammate Fabian Coulthard.
Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver Jamie Whincup finished second, with his teammate Shane van Gisbergen holding off Coulthard for the final podium spot. Whincup made a terrific start to jump the two Shell V-Power Fords off the line.
He and McLaughlin opted to stay out longer on the opening stint than the other contenders but it was the Kiwi who made the gains and, after the second pit stops, it was the Ford driver who had a clear advantage.
Defending series champion van Gisbergen wasn’t happy with his car all weekend and endured a horrid race on Saturday where he suffered a DNF and dropped around 100 championship points to his title rivals. But he made the best of a bad situation in the longer Sunday race and nursed his car home for a podium finish.
Coulthard suffered from sitting right in behind van Gisbergen’s Holden lap after lap in the second half of the race in extreme heat and he wasn’t able to get any clear air into the front of his car.
He fell into the clutches of Tim Slade, Craig Lowndes and David Reynolds as a result and had to fight hard to hold on to fourth place and his championship lead.
“I am pretty pumped with winning the race,” the 24-year-old said. “The burnout procedure wasn’t too good — I need to work with van Gis on that maybe.
“I just had really good pace. It was
pretty warm out there — I enjoyed it. I had a good battle with Jamie there and I’m stoked.”
Whincup was left frustrated with yet another second-place finish — his fifth of the season — and remains winless in 2017.
“The car was good and we certainly gave it a crack,” the six-time champion said.
“I got a good start and got out there and disappeared but I didn’t have the tyre life of car No 17 so that was the story. We certainly made some improvements on the car this weekend which we can take away from here.”
Despite falling behind in the standings this weekend, van Gisbergen was in good spirits after the race, even joking with McLaughlin about his burnout technique. He paid tribute to his Red Bull Holden Racing team for a solid Sunday.
“I must thank the team. It has been a really tough weekend on our car — a lot of problems. We have just persevered and the car wasn’t perfect but we got a third and salvaged a tough weekend.”