Photo: Shell V-Power Racing Team

Scott McLaughlin: Aggressive strategy is all we could try to beat Triple Eight

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Supercars Championship champion-elect Scott McLaughlin says that rolling the dice and trying an agressive undercut strategy on Triple Eight Race Engineering is all he and DJR Team Penske could do in their attempt to win Race 31.

After he started on the front row alongside pole-sitter Shane van Gisbergen, the Triple Eight driver was able to retain the lead into Turn 1, forcing McLaughlin wide which allowed his team-mate Jamie Whincup through.

Though McLaughlin started in second, eighth is the best he could muster in qualifying as the #17 Ford Mustang seemed to lack pace, something which the defending series champion and previous Newcastle winner thinks is untrue.

“We definitely got direction after the shootout; in qualifying the car was not to my liking,” he said.

“I really had to wheel the thing to get a lap out of it but was only P8 so it was good to get in the shootout and have a crack at it.

“We’re heading in the right direction for tomorrow, hopefully we can come back stronger. Race pace I felt really strong, we were just too aggressive on the strategy to try and get in front of these guys (Shane van Gisbergen).

“Obviously you chew tyres up, they can take less fuel and they come back to you on pure pace so I think if you split the stints up in the race, I felt pretty strong.”

McLaughlin says the main focus of the weekend is to deliver a second team’s championship to DJR Team Penske as his points and team-mate Fabian Coulthard’s tally mean the Staplyton squad currently lead the title race with one outing left.

“This whole weekend is purely team, regardless of each car’s position we are trying to do the our best to get two in the top five at least, or two on the podium which is fantastic.

“My car felt really good, we just had to be aggressive there to try and jump them but they had pretty good pace as well.

“At the start, I was either going to get a blinder or boxed out, which is how it goes but he would’ve done the same. That’s racing and I knew it was going to be a fair fight regardless.”

DJR Team Penske holds a lead of 143 points over Triple Eight in the team’s championship while McLaughlin is patiently waiting to be crowned officially as a two-time champion tomorrow, holding an insurmountable points lead of 538 over van Gisbergen.