Controversy clouds ninth season win for Scott McLaughlin

Scott McLaughlin has rebounded from a tense opening lap in Saturday’s Supercars Championship race at Winton to take his ninth win of the season.

Extending his championship lead, the DJR Team Penske driver brushed off a lap one incident with team-mate Fabian Coulthard to emerge victorious at the end of the 40 lap sprint.

Holding off a fired-up Chaz Mostert in the final stint, the DJRTP vs Tickford Racing Mustang battle resulted in a fifth straight win for the Queensland based team for the year.

Under clear skies after rain earlier in the day spiced up qualifying and shuffled the order, the whole field was on slick tyres for the start of the 120km race.

With an all-Mustang front row of Mostert and Coulthard, the mix of teams continued onto the second row with David Reynolds from Erebus Motorsport and James Courtney for Walkinshaw Andretti United behind them.

An even jump off the line saw Mostert and Coulthard go toe-to-to into the Turn 1 and 2 chicane, bumping each other and becoming vulnerable in the process. The melee opened up a possibility for Courtney to take the lead, heading the field out of Turn 4.

As Scott McLaughlin followed Courtney into Turn 5, he made contact with team-mate Coulthard into the corner, firing both DJR Team Penske Mustangs off the road and into the grass.

Re-joining the track, McLaughlin popped up in front of Courtney, subsequently filing himself back in the order behind Reynolds in second but moving into third ahead of Mostert.

On the next lap, Reynolds made a bump-and-run on Courtney at Turn 4, forcing the leader wide and off the road, dropping back behind Mostert into fourth place.

After a hectic first couple of laps, the race settled down from there with everyone falling back in line though it was soon decided that Reynolds would cop a five-second penalty for the contact with Courtney, effectively taking him out of the lead.

Coming in from second on the road, McLaughlin was the first car in the lead pack to take his pit stop on lap 13 just as it was announced that Coulthard would be penalised 15 seconds in his pit stop for the first lap incident.

A bit further back in the pack, Shane van Gisbergen was making his case to be one of the race’s top performers, moving up the order from 12th on the grid and challenging Mark Winterbottom in the battle of the Triple Eight built Holden’s.

As the race neared the half-way mark, the race officials ruled that McLaughlin would not receive a penalty for his off-track excursion on the first lap despite cutting most of the circuit, arguing that he filed back in the right place.

From second on the road, Mostert pitted on lap 20, emerging behind McLaughlin as Reynolds came in for his only stop of the race, being held for five seconds before setting off. The previous race leader came back on the track just in front of Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup who got past on warm tyres.

With fresher tyres, Reynolds retook the position shortly after as Courtney pitted from the race lead, coming out on to the track just behind the Erebus car but in front of Whincup’s Commodore.

The lead battle started to heat up as the race counted down to the 40th lap with Mostert starting to reel in McLaughlin after stopping later, banking on better tyre life at the end of the race to snatch a win from the championship leader.

Late in the race a battle for fifth emerged between team-mates Whincup and van Gisbergen with the #88 machine of Whincup having to fight on old tyres, leaving him no choice but to relinquish the spot to the #97.

Despite the earlier resurgence from Mostert, McLaughlin was able to run away in the final stint to take the victory, crossing the line in first ahead of the pole-sitter. Reynolds finished third in a much-needed result off the back of his earlier penalty, holding off Courtney for the last spot on the podium.

Holding on to fifth spot on fresh tyres, van Gisbergen led Whincup home for Triple Eight with Nick Percat, Andre Heimgartner, Winterbottom and Scott Pye rounding out the top ten. Coulthard ended up coming home in 16th after the first lap incident and his subsequent penalty, hurting his championship aspirations.

Tomorrow will see the field take to the track again with one practice session followed by the three-stage qualifying before the closing 200km race.