Shane van Gisbergen wins final race of 2015 as Triple Eight claim team title

Shane van Gisbergen claimed the final V8 Supercars victory of 2015 in his final race with Tekno Autosport. His soon-to-be team mate Jamie Whincup crossed the line in second place to secure the teams’ title for Triple Eight Race Engineering.

Van Gisbergen started second and was involved in a hard fight for the lead on the opening laps with pole-sitter James Courtney. The fight came to a controversial end in corner nine as Van Gisbergen dived down the inside of the Holden Racing Team driver, resulting in a half-spin for Courtney who dropped a couple of positions.

Race control deemed no action necessary for the incident and van Gisbergen went on into a lead he was never to lose.

Whincup was closing in on the Tekno Autosports driver at one stage of the race, but a mistake from the six-time champion forced him to take the escape route and lost one position to Nissan Motorsport driver Rick Kelly.

A later pit-stop however saw Whincup regain second position while Kelly had to settle for a strong third from fifth on the grid.

Lap eleven saw the first safety car session of the race as Tim Slade made hard contact with the wall due to a stuck throttle. The Walkinshaw Holden driver was unhurt while his car sustained heavy damage.

Scott McLaughlin had a tough end to his race after running fourth, being forced to pit to repair a bent steering arm. The Volvo driver dropped five laps on the leaders to finish 20th.

A second safety car period came seven laps from the end as Prodrive Racing Australia driver Steve Owen stopped on track due to broken suspension. The race resumed with four laps left.

Chris Pither was the final driver to retire after a late-race incident with Volvo Polestar Racing driver David Wall, who had made it into the top ten shootout for the first time in his final race for Volvo. Wall then dropped to 17th after running in the top ten for the majority of the race.

Newly crowned champion Mark Winterbottom crossed the line in fourth position for Prodrive Racing Australia, with David Reynolds in his last race for Prodrive fifth, and championship runner-up Craig Lowndes in sixth.

CS Racing’s Lee Holdsworth, Nissan’s Michael Caruso, DJR Team Penske’s Scott Pye and Brad Jones Racing driver Fabian Coulthard rounded out the top ten.