Photo: V8 Supercars

Shane Van Gisbergen hails team for ”incredible effort” to take runner-up spot

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Shane Van Gisbergen managed to snatch the runner-up spot from Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes in the V8 Supercars season finale and hails the efforts of team Tekno Autosports.

”It is an incredible effort for a little one car team. And the team is just stoked. To be second is my best ever and the decision to move to Tekno has obviously paid off. It will only get better too because we have some new parts coming next year,” said Van Gisbergen to dailytelegraph.com.au.

Van Gisbergen was fourth in the drivers’ championship coming into the Sydney 500 race weekend, something he did not focus on.

“Every five minutes everyone reminded me but I just didn’t worry about it. But everyone keep on making mistakes and finishing down the field, so it is pretty awesome to move up to second after we were awarded full points for today’s race. But Jamie is a very long way up the road so coming near him was never a hope. He won by 500 or so which is the best ever,” said Van Gisbergen.

Ford Performance Racing driver Winterbottom was heading the championship earlier in the season, but fell back as the season progress. Winterbottom had to settle for third in the drivers’ championship after a tough season finale with several incidents and mistakes.

“We made good progress in the second race in the dry but unfortunately I made an error in race one. We are chasing a few things in the set-up and I put my hand up for the mistake. I apologised to the crew and thankfully they did a great job getting the car ready. It turned into a mess after that so I am looking forward to going on holidays and regrouping. The new FG X Falcon should be quicker than the package we have and we finished the year poorly so we’ll enjoy Christmas and go again,” said Winterbottom.

Red Bull Racing Australia driver Lowndes had an equally tough weekend in Sydney after crashing in qualifying and dropped to fourth in the championship, his lowest finish since 2010.

”It was a disappointing finish for us, I think we had a good opportunity to grab second in the championship but with the accident in qualifying on Saturday it really hurt us and me. Having said that, we did the best we could and I think the boys should be really happy with that. There’s a lot to celebrate over the next couple of weeks with taking out the Teams’ Championship and Jamie winning the Drivers’ Championship,” said Lowndes.