Photo: Supercars.com

Shane van Gisbergen claims last-lap win as Scott McLaughlin runs out of fuel

Shane van Gisbergen claimed an important victory in the penultimate Supercars championship round of the year in the Newcastle season finale as title rival Scott McLaughlin ran out of fuel on the very last lap.

Triple Eight Race Engineering driver van Gisbergen started on pole position but lost the lead into the first corner to team-mate Jamie Whincup.

McLaughlin started a row behind and was close to the Holden duo with his team-mate Fabian Coulthard close to him.

A couple of laps into the race and Whincup had let van Gisbergen past with McLaughlin putting pressure on Whincup for second place.

As Whincup and Coulthard had made their first pit stop, disaster struck for the Holden driver as the two made contact. The duo went side-by-side for a couple of corners before Whincup ran out of road on the outside of Coulthard and hit the barriers.

Whincup was able to continue but dropped down the order to finish fourth with the stewards deciding to take no action on the incident.

Things went even worse for Coulthard not long after as the DJR Team Penske driver made a mistake and went into the wall hard, retiring on the spot and forcing the safety car on track.

Tim Blanchard and Nick Percat were unable to avoid Coulthard’s stricken Ford Falcon and were forced to retire as well.

McLaughlin held the lead as the race resumed with van Gisbergen down in sixth as he stopped for a second time to add more fuel.

Van Gisbergen started to make his way back up through the field and was in second place as the race neared the end.

The gap was down to less than two seconds on the final lap as disaster struck for McLaughlin who slowed down due to fuel shortage. Van Gisbergen won the race by four seconds as McLaughlin rolled across the line to finish second and later stop on track with an empty fuel tank.

The victory has van Gisbergen only two points behind ahead of tomorrow’s last race of 2018, making for an exciting title decider.

David Reynolds finished third for Erebus Motorsport ahead of a recovering Whincup in fourth.

Scott Pye crossed the finishing line in fifth position while Tickford Racing driver Mark Winterbottom rounded off the top six.

The last race of 2018 starts at 15:40 local time (05:40 CET) tomorrow.