Van Gisbergen wins Race 28 but faces post-race investigation

Shane van Gisbergen has beaten Scott McLaughlin in Race 28 at Pukekohe despite a time penalty but has another sanction hanging over his head for a possible pit stop infringement.

Van Gisbergen smacked the rear of McLaughlin’s Ford at the Hairpin with 10 laps remaining and went on to make a huge move down the inside of Car #17 as they swept back onto the main straight.

The contact had occurred as the Red Bull Holden Racing Team pilot attempted to criss-cross McLaughlin after he had parked the Shell V-Power FGX Falcon on the inside of the braking zone, and stewards deemed it a driving infringement.

A five-second penalty was issued just over five laps later, at which time the #97 ZB Commodore was around three seconds to the good.

Van Gisbergen continued to pull away and had 5.0959s on McLaughlin with a lap remaining.

Despite dropping a wheel of and nearly swapping ends at the last corner of the race, he increased his margin on Lap 70 and took the chequered flag 5.5119s ahead, meaning that he now trails McLaughlin by two points in the title race.

However, the 2016 champion is subject to a post-race investigation for spinning wheels during his second pit stop.

Race Control issued notification of the investigation around the Lap 50 mark but took until near the end of the race, after determining the driving infringement, to decide to hold off a call until after the first race of the ITM Auckland SuperSprint.

“I hope you guys enjoyed that, that was one of the coolest races I’ve ever had,” said van Gisbergen after exiting his car.

“That was so cool, hopefully we can put on a good show tomorrow and hopefully Kiwi one-two.

“The pass with Scotty, he jammed it up quite nice and I just touched the back of him but good respect through the last couple of corners side-by-side, and cleared him up over the hill.”

McLaughlin would not be drawn on the hit he copped from his compatriot.

“It is what it is,” he responded.

“We’ll come back tomorrow and give them a good run for their money.”

On the race in general, he described it as “full on”.

“I got a pretty good start, raced really hard all race,” he added.

“Obviously there was a bit of tit for tat there. It was great racing around the back there, side-by-side, plenty of respect. You go hard.

“Gutted we didn’t get the win at the end of the day but we gave it a shot in strategy. Hopefully Ford fans can come back tomorrow and give these Opels (ZB Commodore) a run.”

The post-race investigation adds more drama to what was a fascinating race as the two title combatants and New Zealand heroes battled each other on the track, in a strategy game, and then on the track again.

McLaughlin led the field off the grid from Armor All Pole Position while van Gisbergen hung tough on the outside and wrested second position back from David Reynolds into Turn 2 when it looked like he had lost it.

The Ford driver gapped his factory Holden rival to the tune of a bit over a second in the opening laps before losing a little of that margin as he came up on Mark Winterbottom (#5 The Bottle-O FGX Falcon), who had pitted from midfield on Lap 1.

A Safety Car was called on Lap 8 after McLaughlin’s DJR Team Penske team-mate Fabian Coulthard (#12 FGX Falcon) clouted the wall at the final corner of the circuit.

He had been in a battle with Lee Holdsworth and copped a touch from the #18 Preston Hire Racing ZB Commodore as he rounded Turn 10, slewing into the tyre wall on driver’s right before rebounding across the track and wearing a hard hit with the concrete.

Holdsworth, however, had been given a nudge by Richie Stanaway as he got to the apex and the #56 Rabble.Club FGX Falcon was issued a drive-through with further investigation post-race.

The presence of light rain at the time presented a dilemma to teams but all opted to switch to another set of slicks when they responded to the Safety Car by filing into the pit lane.

James Courtney (#25 Boost Mobile ZB Commodore), who pitted with Winterbottom but took far less fuel than the front-runners, took over the lead from McLaughlin, van Gisbergen, Chaz Mostert, and David Reynolds, while Jamie Whincup fell from fifth to 17th due to the stack.

Van Gisbergen was immediately needling the rear of Car #17 when the race restarted on Lap 15 and made the move at the Hairpin seven laps later.

He stalked Courtney for several laps before throwing it down the inside at the same corner on Lap 31, only for Courtney to make a superior exit and take the position back through the sweep onto the main straight.

As that was going on, McLaughlin, who had taken an extra four litres relative to van Gisbergen at his first pit stop, was into the lane a second time took his second pit stop.

Van Gisbergen had another crack at Car #25 on Lap 35 and this time he forced Courtney to prop mid-corner, which allowed him to make the move stick.

Despite giving up lap speed to McLaughlin while he ran on older tyres, van Gisbergen missed one instruction to pit on Lap 45.

On Lap 46, as he tailed Reynolds on the road, he was initially told by Grant McPherson to “Pit or pass” before being given the firmer instruction of “Pit; no option,” and duly peeled off the race track.

Van Gisbergen barely hung on to second position when he rejoined as Mostert tore around the first sweeper, but faced a deficit of 4.2s by the end of the lap.

As race control advised that Car #97 was under investigation for spinning wheels in the pits, he started to claw back the gap to McLaughlin and was under the red and white Ford’s rear wing on Lap 60, setting up the controversial pass.

Mostert was all but forgotten as he brought the #55 Supercheap Auto FGX Falcon to a second straight podium, ahead of Reynolds (#9 Erebus Penrite ZB Commodore).

Whincup fought back to fifth in the #1 Triple Eight ZB Commodore, ahead of Scott Pye (#2 Walkinshaw Andretti United ZB Commodore), Cameron Waters (#6 Monster Energy FGX Falcon), Nick Percat (#8 Coregas ZB Commodore), Courtney, and Michael Caruso (#23 Industrial Athlete Nissan Altima).

Despite being spun early on, Craig Lowndes (#888 National Storage ZB Commodore) climbed from 18th on the grid to finish 11th, two positions ahead of Winterbottom.

The field is next on-track at Pukekohe Park Raceway for Armor All Qualifying for Race 29 tomorrow at 1105 local time/0905 AEDT.

Results: Race 28, ITM Auckland SuperSprint Updated*

Pos	Num	Team/Sponsor	Driver	Car	Laps	Race time
1	97	Red Bull Holden Racing Team	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:22:38.1009
2	17	Shell V-Power Racing Team	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Falcon FG/X	70	1:22:38.6128
3	55	Supercheap Auto Racing	Chaz Mostert	Ford Falcon FG/X	70	1:22:43.7351
4	9	Erebus Penrite Racing	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:22:51.5306
5	1	Red Bull Holden Racing Team	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:22:51.8881
6	2	Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:22:59.5524
7	6	Monster Energy Racing	Cameron Waters	Ford Falcon FG/X	70	1:23:00.5285
8	8	COREGAS NZ RACING	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:01.1912
9	25	Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing	James Courtney	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:03.7229
10	23	Drive Racing	Michael Caruso	Nissan Altima	70	1:23:05.0822
11	888	Autobarn Lowndes Racing	Craig Lowndes	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:06.2977
12	21	Team CoolDrive	Tim Blanchard	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:10.4591
13	5	The Bottle-O Racing Team	Mark Winterbottom	Ford Falcon FG/X	70	1:23:13.3922
14	34	Wilson Security Racing GRM	James Golding	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:16.1232
15	18	Preston Hire Racing	Lee Holdsworth	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:16.8044
16	15	Castrol Racing	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	70	1:23:17.3469
17	14	COREGAS NZ RACING	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:17.6394
18	7	Plus Fitness Racing	Andre Heimgartner	Nissan Altima	70	1:23:24.0457
19	99	Erebus Thermosphere Racing	Anton De Pasquale	Holden Commodore ZB	70	1:23:25.0553
20	230	Milwaukee Racing	Will Davison	Ford Falcon FG/X	70	1:23:28.0202
21	78	Team Harvey Norman	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima	70	1:23:28.9219
22	19	Tekno Autosports	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	69	1:22:36.1809
23	56	RABBLE.club Racing	Richie Stanaway	Ford Falcon FG/X	69	1:23:08.1086
24	35	Bigmate Racing	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore VF2	68	1:22:42.1877
25	33	Wilson Security Racing GRM	Garth Tander	Holden Commodore ZB	59	1:23:30.2513
DNF	12	Shell V-Power Racing Team	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Falcon FG/X	6	6:48.1153

Drivers’ championship

Pos	Driver	Pts
1	Scott McLaughlin	3506
2	Shane van Gisbergen	3504
3	Jamie Whincup	3046
4	Craig Lowndes	2997
5	David Reynolds	2807
6	Chaz Mostert	2567
7	Fabian Coulthard	2354
8	Scott Pye	2350
9	Rick Kelly	2338
10	Nick Percat	2143
11	Tim Slade	2066
12	Garth Tander	1944
13	Mark Winterbottom	1940
14	James Courtney	1809
15	Will Davison	1777
16	Cameron Waters	1678
17	Michael Caruso	1603
18	Jack Le Brocq	1538
19	Andre Heimgartner	1493
20	Anton De Pasquale	1362
21	James Golding	1301
22	Lee Holdsworth	1227
23	Tim Blanchard	1211
24	Simona de Silvestro	1161
25	Richie Stanaway	1079
26	Todd Hazelwood	1063
27	Steven Richards	696
28	Alexandre Premat	609
29	Earl Bamber	576
30	James Moffat	546
31	Warren Luff	546
32	Paul Dumbrell	519
33	Macauley Jones	495
34	Luke Youlden	474
35	Chris Pither	456
36	Tony D’Alberto	432
37	Garry Jacobson	363
38	Dean Canto	342
39	Richard Muscat	315
40	Alex Davison	309
41	David Russell	294
42	Aaren Russell	288
43	Ashley Walsh	270
44	Jonathon Webb	255
45	Dale Wood	252
46	Jack Perkins	243
47	Bryce Fullwood	219
48	Jason Bright	216
49	William Brown	204
50	Alex Rullo	177
51	Steve Owen	68
52	Dean Fiore	96
53	Kurt Kostecki	90

* Car #7 issued 5-second post-race penalty (no change to finishing order)