Whincup breaks van Gisbergen streak in T8 one-two

Shane van Gisbergen’s winning streak has come to an end as he finished second to Triple Eight team-mate Jamie Whincup in Race 7 of the Supercars Championship at Symmons Plains.

Whincup grabbed the effective race lead from Cameron Waters with a pass down the back straight midway through the 44-lap encounter, and van Gisbergen made his way by the Tickford Racing entry a few laps later.

In doing so, he allowed Will Davison to move into an effective third and that was where the Dick Johnson Racing pilot would stay, with Waters home in fourth and Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown fifth.

The victory is Whincup’s first in 2021, and indeed the first for anyone other than van Gisbergen this year, with those two now separated by 145 points at the head of the championship.

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Waters (#6 Monster Energy Mustang) led the field into Turn 2 from pole position, ahead of Whincup (#88 Red Bull Ampol ZB Commodore), Brown (#9 Ozland ZB Commodore), Davison (#17 Shell V-Power Mustang), and van Gisbergen (#97 Shell V-Power Mustang).

Anton De Pasquale (#11 Shell V-Power Mustang) bagged it up when the lights went out and dropped from third on the grid to sixth, before he was unloaded by Jack Le Brocq (#5 Truck Assist Mustang) when they arrived at the Hairpin for the first time.

Le Brocq would be given a 15-second penalty, but not before he was turned into the fence by Andre Heimgartner (#7 Ned Mustang), and Jake Kostecki (#34 Unit ZB Commodore) fired into the weeds to avoid them, in the chaos which ensued.

Van Gisbergen nabbed fourth from Davison as the standing lap came to an end and, while the top five ran together initially, it soon became apparent that the championship leader was being held up by Brown.

Van Gisbergen made his move on Lap 9 as they ran up the back straight, at which time Whincup was around 1.7s up the road and still tailing Waters.

That remained the case until Tickford called Waters into the pits on Lap 13, with Brown following him down the lane as van Gisbergen closed in on Whincup.

Davison stopped a lap later and emerged ahead of Brown, while Whincup peeled off with a lead of almost 0.7s on van Gisbergen at the end of Lap 19.

Whincup rejoined the race track just behind Waters but grabbed the effective lead on Lap 25 when he showed the nose at the Hairpin and completed the pass at the other end of the back straight, with a bump or two along the way.

Van Gisbergen pressed on until Lap 27 and reportedly took another pair of used rear hoops, despite suggestions Triple Eight might change the working side due to a possible mark on a tyre.

He got out just behind Davison as the DJR driver stalked Waters, who had already lost almost two seconds relative to Whincup since the pass.

Van Gisbergen went under the #17 Mustang at the Hairpin on Lap 30 and forced it wide to ensure that he could make the move for an effective third position stick.

A lap later, he had a bigger lunge at Waters which took both very wide, and not only did #97 go past #6, so did Davison in #17.

Whincup was more than three seconds to the good at that point, and 2.7s when the compulsory pit stop cycle completed on Lap 33.

That margin continued to fall steadily but there was no major threat from behind, with #97 taking the chequered flag 1.0032s in arrears.

“Good feeling to get the win of course,” said Whincup, before quipping, “The bloke beside me has had a shocker, he’s come second.

“Car was great, didn’t quite get the start I would have liked and we had slightly better tyre life than Cam so was able to get past.

“Then SVG was coming at the end but just had enough to hang on.”

Davison was more than five seconds further back from the Triple Eight duo in third at the very end, ahead of Waters and Brown.

Chaz Mostert (#25 Mobil 1 Appliances Online ZB Commodore) took sixth, and the five bonus points for the fastest lap, from Mark Winterbottom (#18 Irwin Tools ZB Commodore), David Reynolds (#26 Penrite Mustang), Scott Pye (#20 DeWalt ZB Commodore), and Heimgartner.

Nick Percat (#8 R&J Batteries ZB Commodore) climbed to 11th from 20th on the grid while De Pasquale ended up 13th.

The final race of the Beaurepaires Tasmania SuperSprint is set to kick off at 16:25 local time/AEST.

Results: Race 7, Beaurepaires Tasmania SuperSprint

Pos	Num	Team/Sponsor	Driver	Car	Laps	Race time
1	88	Red Bull Ampol Racing Team	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	44	38:58.0841
2	97	Red Bull Ampol Racing Team	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	44	38:59.0873
3	17	Shell V-Power Racing Team	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:04.5798
4	6	Monster Energy Racing	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:09.9892
5	9	Erebus Motorsport	William Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:12.0861
6	25	Mobil 1 Appliances Online	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:13.9005
7	18	IRWIN Racing	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:14.0568
8	26	Penrite Racing	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:15.0804
9	20	DEWALT Racing	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:15.9997
10	7	NED Whisky Racing	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:16.8651
11	8	R&J Batteries	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:17.3415
12	3	CoolDrive Racing	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:17.5425
13	11	Shell V-Power Racing Team	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	44	39:20.3392
14	14	Scandia Racing	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:20.5195
15	34	UNIT Racing	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:26.7544
16	99	Erebus Boost Mobile Racing	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:27.7593
17	2	Mobil 1 Middy’s Racing	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:29.0497
18	35	Yellow Cover Racing	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:32.5485
19	22	Team SYDNEY	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:33.8159
20	96	Coca-Cola Racing	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB	44	39:43.7366
21	5	Truck Assist Racing	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	43	39:08.1215
22	44	Boost Mobile Racing	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	41	39:22.6659
NC	19	Local Legends	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	6	16:09.8652
NC	4	SCT Motor Sports	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	1	1:03.0643

Fastest lap (bonus): Chaz Mostert 0:51.8897, Lap 20

Drivers’ championship

Pos	Driver	Pts
1	Shane van Gisbergen	797
2	Jamie Whincup	652
3	Chaz Mostert	595
4	Cameron Waters	583
5	Mark Winterbottom	539
6	Will Davison	537
7	David Reynolds	414
8	Andre Heimgartner	404
9	Brodie Kostecki	403
10	William Brown	390
11	Nick Percat	387
12	Scott Pye	386
13	Anton De Pasquale	370
14	Jack Le Brocq	360
15	Todd Hazelwood	357
16	Bryce Fullwood	343
17	James Courtney	324
18	Jake Kostecki	304
19	Zane Goddard	286
20	Fabian Coulthard	224
21	Jack Smith	222
22	Tim Slade	218
23	Garry Jacobson	199
24	Macauley Jones	196

Teams’ championship

Pos	Car(s)			Team	Pts
1	88	97		Triple Eight Race Engineering	1449
2	2	25		Walkinshaw Andretti United	938
3	18	20		Team 18	925
4	11	17	100	Dick Johnson Racing	907
5	6	44		Tickford Racing	907
6	7	26		Kelly Grove Racing	818
7	9	99		Erebus Motorsport	793
8	8	14		Brad Jones Racing	744
9	34	35		Matt Stone Racing	590
10	19	22		Team Sydney	423
11	4	96		Brad Jones Racing	418
12	5			Tickford Racing	360
13	3			Blanchard Racing Team	218