Photo: Polestar

Scott McLaughlin breaks into the top five after Phillip Island

Scott McLaughlin had his best V8 Supercars of 2014 this weekend at Phillip Island, scoring two victories, and climbed into the top five of the drivers’ championship.
”My goal was to get into the top five ahead of the weekend. I am stoked to get two wins, climb to fifth and to claim my ninth pole of the year,” said McLaughlin.

The 21-year-old took the second victory in spectacular fashion as race leader Garth Tander ran out of fuel going out of the final corner.

”I feel for Garth (Tander) and in some ways it was a bit lucky. But my car was great the whole time and I knew that I had enough tire life to attack him. It was very difficult because of the dirty air, you get a lot of understeer coming onto the straight,” said McLaughlin.

GRM team owner Garry Rogers emphasized the point that the Holden Racing Team had gambled in the first pitstop where Tander got the jump on McLaughlin.

”When things like this occur many will say that HRT were unlucky and to some extent they were. But, they took the punt in putting less fuel in at the first stop to jump Scott and it so nearly payed off. For us this was a great day, but more importantly for V8 Supercars it was yet another great race that illustrates what a fantastic Motorsport category that we have here in Australia,” said Rogers.

The Phillip Island weekend was the so far most successful for Volvo Polestar Racing with Polestar CEO Christian Dahl looking ahead to the coming 2015 season.

”We are very glad to have our best weekend of 2014 and a performance curve pointing straight up in the final run of races ahead of the 2015 season. Scott and the team put in an amazing effort this weekend and it is of course extra nice to have that dramatic end to the final race for us and all the fans,” said Dahl.