Bittersweet goodbye for van Gisbergen
AUSTRALIAN SUPERCARS PUKEKOHE (NZL) 10-11 SEPTEMBER ROUND 10/14
Shane van Gisbergen gave Pukekohe Park the perfect send-off with an emotional victory in the circuit’s final ever race.
The Kiwi went into his home event as the runaway favourite, but instead met stiff opposition from a rapid Will Davison.
On Saturday van Gisbergen wasn’t even second best to Davison, the series leader qualifying just seventh. As Davison ran away with race one, van Gisbergen could only work his way forward to a relatively underwhelming fifth.
That left Andre Heimgartner as the best-performing Kiwi, the Brad Jones
Racing Holden driver holding his nerve to finish second in a tense showdown with Cam Waters after a late safety car.
Triple Eight found some speed overnight and van Gisbergen grabbed pole for the first of the two Sunday races. He went backwards in the second qualifying session though, lining up eighth as Davison’s Ford took pole.
The start of race two was rocked by a frightening crash for Will Brown, who hit the pit entry wall hard after contact with Mark Winterbottom, which prompted a red flag. Once the race did get going van Gisbergen made light work of it from pole ahead of Chaz Mostert, Waters and Davison.
Pukekohe then turned on a thriller for its final Supercars race. Davison was dominant early on, only for his race to unravel when his left-rear wheel wasn’t done up properly during his stop. That left Waters and Heimgartner out front, only for a late-stopping van Gisbergen to charge into contention. After passing Heimgartner, van Gisbergen and Waters staged a remarkable battle for the lead over a handful of laps before the hometown hero finally got through at Turn 11 three laps from home to the delight of the sell-out crowd.
The victory also secured van Gisbergen the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.