Shane Van Gisbergen dominates in the rain in Sydney

Tekno Autosports’ Shane Van Gisbergen took his second win of the season, showing everyone else the way in the first race at a wet Sydney Motorsport Park, while Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup extended his points lead over the struggling Ford of Mark Winterbottom.

Rain hit the track hard shortly before the start, with everyone running on wet tyres, although the rain had stopped before the race begun, there was significant spray during the early stages, with the track slow to dry out.

At the start of the race, Rick Kelly made a slow getaway from third on the grid in his Nissan Altima, while Shane Van Gisbergen on the hand made a fantastic start from sixth on the grid in the Tekno Autosports Holden, moving up to third behind the two front-row starters, pole-sitter Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup and Volvo Polestar Racing’s Scott McLaughlin.

Further down the order, Rod Nash Racing’s David Reynolds was spun around with apparent contact from Nissan’s James Moffat, and then was collected by Tim Slade’s Walkinshaw Racing car at speed, with Slade’s car launched over Reynolds’s Ford Falcon. Both cars were eliminated from the race due to the impact, and with Reynolds’ car stranded on circuit, the safety car was out before the end of lap one.

The race restarted on lap four, with Van Gisbergen quickly passing McLaughlin’s Volvo S60 for second place, and then the New Zealander caught and passed race leader Whincup one lap later to take the lead.

Whincup began to slowly drop down the order, falling to fourth by lap ten behind the Volvo of Scott McLaughlin and his Triple Eight team-mate Craig Lowndes, and was now defending to keep Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander behind, while Van Gisbergen continued to build a strong lead out front.

Van Gisbergen’s lead was wiped out on lap 12 however, when McLaughlin stopped on circuit from second due to a steering problem in his Volvo S60, promoting the two Triple Eight cars of Lowndes and Whincup to second and third.

Former points leader Mark Winterbottom was the only driver to dive into the pits during the second safety car period, with the Ford Performance Racing driver losing very little ground as he was running all the way down in 20th position and struggling with rear grip, with the stop therefore just costing him two positions as he put on another set of wet tyres.

When the race restarted, Garth Tander quickly dispatched the two Triple Eight Holdens, with his HRT Holden clearly dialled in to the wet conditions, but had nothing on the pace of Van Gisbergen, who stormed away into the lead again and went on to take a comfortable win in the slippery conditions.

Brad Jones Racing’s Fabian Coulthard retired with damage, removing another title protagonist from the race, while Winterbottom’s pit stop appeared to pay off, with the Ford driver rejuvenated on his new set of tyres, and drove through to 12th position from 22nd, later promoted to 11th following Scott Pye’s penalty, though still loses 24 points in the title race against rival Jamie Whincup, whose lead is now up to 39 points.

With the race declared a timed race, the rain began to fall again with five minutes remaining and looks set to dampen the track again ahead of the second race of the day, which follows in just over an hour’s time.

There was late race contact between Dick Johnson Racing’s Scott Pye and the Walkinshaw Holden of Nick Percat, with Percat spun out of 11th position. Pye then caught and passed Erebus Mercedes’ Lee Holdsworth on the final lap, crossing the line a nose ahead of Holdsworth’s C63, and put at least one Ford in the top ten, until he was given a 30 second penalty by the officials for the contact with Percat, putting Holdsworth back in tenth and dropping Percat down to 20th and last.

Michael Caruso was the best placed Nissan in fifth ahead of team-mate Rick Kelly, while Will Davison took the best position for Mercedes in seventh, with Robert Dahlgren the only finisher for Volvo Polestar Racing in 19th position.

Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin is due to start on pole ahead of Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup for the next race, with Brad Jones Racing’s Fabian Coulthard third. It’s a tight-turnaround for Volvo Polestar Racing to get McLaughlin on the grid in time, with the team having to change the engine ahead of the next race.

UPDATE: Scott Pye was soon given a 30 second penalty for the contact with Percat, which dropped him to 20th and last.