First-time venue hosts Aussie team history
AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS THE BEND (AUS) AUGUST 25-26 ROUND 11/16 Shane van Gisbergen is the new Supercars points leader, after he and Jamie Whincup split the wins at the all-new The Bend Motorsport Park. The Triple Eight Holden pair couldn’t be stopped across the two races, only a poorly timed safety car on Saturday preventing a clean-sweep.
And, with Scott Mclaughlin struggling to break into the top five in either race, a win and a second was enough for van Gisbergen to overhaul his fellow Kiwi in the standings.
To make the weekend even sweeter for the team, the two wins have moved its total victory tally to 181 – making it the most successful Australian Touring Car Championship/
Supercars team of all-time.
It all started with a dominant performance from van Gisbergen, who cruised to a 6.3-second win in the single-stopper on Saturday.
The pivotal moment was a fifth-lap pass on polesitter and early leader Whincup. So when the safety car was called two laps later to retrieve Garth Tander’s broken-down Commodore, van Gisbergen had priority in pitlane.
With Whincup dropping back to eighth after being forced to stack, and Rick Kelly – who inherited second – lacking the speed to mount a serious challenge, van Gisbergen was able to cruise to the first ever Supercars win at The Bend circuit.
Kelly finished second, Michael Caruso third, with Whincup fourth after an impressive recovery during the second stint.
The icing on van Gisbergen’s victory cake was that Mclaughlin couldn’t do any better than sixth behind Mark Winterbottom, which slashed his points lead to just 41 on Saturday night.
On the Sunday, the opening laps were once again crucial, although this time it was Whincup that benefited. While he skipped away from pole position, van Gisbergen found himself stuck behind a fast-starting Tim Slade.
It only took him two laps to get by, but by that point Whincup was 3s down the road in what would ultimately become a comfortable 11s win.
While unable to take the fight to Whincup, second place was good enough for van Gisbergen. With Mclaughlin managing just 10th, van Gisbergen ended the weekend with a 19-point advantage.
“I saw the purple board [signifying the championship leader in parc ferme] and got a bit excited,” said the 2016 series champion.
“There’s a long way to go, we need to keep our heads down, but the team gave us some rockets this weekend. A one-two is really special.”
David Reynolds was the big mover in the second race, coming from 12th on the grid to finish third after Slade made a mistake with a handful of laps to go and gifted his podium spot to the Erebus Holden driver.
The series now heads into endurance mode, with the Sandown 500 kicking off the long-distance races.