Van Gisbergen and Tander lead Holden podium sweep in closing Gold Coast outing

The experienced pairing of Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander have won their first race together and headed up a one-two finish for Triple Eight after converting pole to victory in the last Supercars Championship race of the Gold Coast 600 round.

After van Gisbergen qualified the car on pole, it was a relatively straightforward race for the #97 car as Tander controlled the opening stint and handed the car over to the main driver without a mark.

It was a reversal of sorts from Saturday’s race where a hard-charging van Gisbergen on fresh tyres was told to hold station behind Jamie Whincup, today the opposite applies when Whincup was instructed to stay behind the Kiwi and settle for second with co-driver Craig Lowndes.

As the lights went out to start the race, an even jump off the line between the Triple Eight cars of Tander and Craig  saw the pair go into the first turn line astern as Luke Youlden forced his Erebus Motorsport entry past Alex Davison’s 23Red Racing Mustang for second.

Congestion in the mid-pack caused a multi-car crash between Will Brown, Steven Richards, Dean Canto and Richard Muscat at Turn 11, proving itself as a hotspot for action over the weekend. The Muscat/James Golding entry from Garry Rogers Motorsport was parked in the garage, adding to their day of woes after standing down Richie Stanaway.

Despite the accident, the race stayed green and Fabian Coulthard worked his DJR Team Penske #12 up to ninth after three laps from 16th on the grid, setting the fastest laps of the race to that point in the process.

With the race settling into a rhythm, Tander retained the lead by one second over Lowndes, the pair being followed by Youlden who had Davison in close quarters for company with Thomas Randle on a stellar Gold Coast debut in fifth for Tickford Racing.

Before too long, Davison proved to be the cork in the bottle, losing touch of Youlden in front and holding up Randle, the Walkinshaw Andretti United cars of Jack Perkins and Warren Luff, Tickford’s Michael Caruso and Coulthard behind him.

Both Caruso and Coulthard bailed out from the battle on lap 23, looking for clear air as Caruso stayed in the #6 and Coulthard jumped out of the #12 to hand it over to co-driver Tony D’Alberto. The pit stop for D’Alberto went long and as he was dropped from the jacks, the rear wheels of the Mustang spun, earning them a 15 second penalty.

As the field passed the marker of 34 laps for the minimum number of laps a co-driver can do, Tander, Youlden, Davison and Perkins all came in, handing their cars over to the main drivers of Shane van Gisbergen, David Reynolds, Will Davison and James Courtney.

Randle and Luff were in next, Lee Holdsworth and Scott Pye jumping aboard the respective cars. While they came out on either side of Courtney, the #22 car had to come in to the pits again after the WAU team were unable to close the driver’s door in the stop, moving Pye to fifth.

Lowndes relinquished the lead and handed over the #888 to Jamie Whincup on lap 38, giving it back to the main driver without a scratch and in a healthy third position behind van Gisbergen as Caruso held the race lead, taking an earlier stop and running out of sequence.

Despite running over ten seconds behind the #888 in the first stint of the race, Reynolds was able to get right up behind the effective second placed car in his #9 Erebus entry, applying pressure to yesterday’s race winner for the second spot on the podium.

Caruso soon had his mirrors full of Holden Commodores as Whincup and Reynolds got within touching distance of the Tickford car. Against the main drivers in the series, Caruso held his own until Whincup was able to find a way past with Reynolds following suit later in the lap.

After clocking up 60 laps behind the wheel, Caruso jumped out of the #6 car and handed it back to main driver Cam Waters, praying for a safety car with 42 laps left to run and an average fuel economy of around 40 laps from a tank.

Reynolds tried for the undercut on lap 63, taking his final stop of the race as Pye followed him in to the pit lane. Waters was able to put himself between the two Commodores in effective fourth place as van Gisbergen stopped from the lead, returning to the track comfortably in front of Reynolds.

After putting in a long middle stint, Whincup’s last trip to the pits came on lap 76, taking on new tyres and fuel to get to the finish. Taking the benefit of clear air in his stint, Whincup came out only just behind van Gisbergen but on much fresher tyres, reversing the situation of Saturday’s race where it was the #97 who was told to hold station.

Further back and fighting for fourth place, Pye was able get past Waters but not without a fight as the Tickford driver nearly turned the WAU car into the fence out of the Turn 5 kink, getting an overlap but backing out of the move to prevent an accident.

Driving into the final few laps without a safety car interruption, van Gisbergen continued to lead from Whincup while Reynolds started to get himself into the mix, bringing the Erebus car within a second of the Triple Eight entries, trying to spoil a second consecutive one-two for the factory Holden team.

Though he applied late pressure to the #888, Reynolds had to settle for third as van Gisbergen took the win for he and Tander, giving his co-driver a first win since the 2016 Sandown 500 where he had to play second fiddle on that day.

The podium finish for Erebus made it their first at the Surfers Paradise track while Triple Eight’s one-two finish was the second in as many days, helping Holden to take their first podium sweep of 2019.

Pye and Waters rounded out the top five while Holdsworth brought the #5 car home to sixth in his 200th round start. Davison was close behind his team-mate and clearly ahead of Anton de Pasquale in the #99 car which was caught up in the opening lap smash.

Despite having to pit to have his door shut earlier in the race, Courtney ended up ninth with the fastest lap of the race while Nick Percat brought his Brad Jones Racing #8 home in the last top ten spot. Fabian Coulthard just missed out on the ten in the DJR Team Penske Mustang, recovering well after a hard day for Tony D’Alberto.

With Scott McLaughlin sitting out the race thanks to his earlier qualifying crash, van Gisbergen moves to being 463 points shy of the championship leader with 600 up for grabs over the next two rounds.

Van Gisbergen and Tander also now lead the Enduro Cup after finishing second twice and now notching up a win over the last three races.

The next Supercars Championship round takes place on November 8-10 with the Sandown 500.