Fourth win of 2018 for championship leader Scott McLaughlin

Championship leader Scott McLaughlin claimed his fourth Supercars win of the season in the first race of the weekend at Perth.

The DJR Team Penske won the race in style, close to six seconds ahead of Tickford Racing driver Mark Winterbottom and close to nine seconds ahead of Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Shane van Gisbergen in third.

“At the start we wanted to gap them a little bit. We felt our car was strong enough,” said McLaughlin to supercars.com.

“Obviously then they attacked and tried to undercut us, but we managed to stay out and then I knew I had the tyre pace at the end. I just had the gap. It’s nice when you had those, they don’t come around often so I’ll enjoy it.”

McLaughlin started from pole position and claimed the lead ahead of team-mate Fabian Coulthard.

The first pit stop saw things go wrong for Coulthard as the team struggled to get the rear wheel changed, dropping him to finish eighth, 16 seconds from his race winning team-mate.

Brad Jones Racing driver Tim Slade was second in the final part of the race but dropped two positions to Winterbottom and van Gisbergen as they were on less worn tyres. Slade crossed the line in fourth position ahead of Triple Eight driver Craig Lowndes.

Reigning champion Jamie Whincup had a tough race, starting from 14th position to cross the line in fifth position. Whincup was involved in an incident with Chaz Mostert as the Tickford Racing driver was heading to the pits and Whincup tagged the rear of his Ford Falcon, sending him into a spin.

Whincup received a five-second penalty for the incident, dropping him from sixth to eleventh while Mostert finished tenth.

Cameron Waters finished sixth for Tickford Racing ahead of Will Davison in seventh.

The second race of the weekend starts at 14:15 local time.