Shane van Gisbergen wins final Townsville race from storming James Courtney

Shane van Gisbergen won the final race of the Townsville weekend, just over one second ahead of a storming James Courtney who made up seven places in the last six laps.

At first things looked grim for Van Gisbergen who made a mistake in the early part of the race, locking up his brakes and flat-spotting a tyre which saw the Triple Eight Race Engineering team changing pitstop strategy for the Kiwi.

Instead it was reigning champion Mark Winterbottom who held the lead in the first part of the race, but the Ford driver had to give way for Van Gisbergen who stormed into the lead after the first safety car session.

The first safety car session was caused by Kurt Kostecki going off after technical issues with his Holden. A second session came as Andre Heimgartner stopped on track, just 11 laps from the finish.

This saw several drivers pitting, one of them being Courtney. The Holden Racing Team driver made the most of his fresh tyres, climbing from ninth to second after the race had resumed, passing Prodrive Racing Australia driver Winterbottom on the last lap.

Winterbottom had to settle for third while yesterday’s winner Jamie Whincup finished fourth.

Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin got some consolation after yesterday’s 24th place following a puncture on lap one, finishing fifth in the race today ahead of the Ford duo of Cameron Waters and Scott Pye.

Nissan Motorsport’s Michael Caruso rounded off the top eight, six seconds from race winner Van Gisbergen.

Whincup continues to top the standings, 53 points ahead of team-mate Van Gisbergen. V8 Supercars continues on July 24th at Queensland Raceway.