Jamie Whincup takes Triple Crown win, shares Sunday victories with Scott McLaughlin
Championship contenders Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin have shared the spoils of the final day in this year’s Darwin Triple Crown as the round win was sorted in favour of the Triple Eight driver.
Bouncing back on Sunday after a tough Saturday at the office, Whincup took the win in the final race at Hidden Valley Raceway to draw equal with DJR Team Penske driver Fabian Coulthard for the round, ending up as the winner thanks to his victory as McLaughlin secured third off the back of a win in the second race.
McLaughlin started the day well by taking pole for both of the day’s races, backing up his form from Saturday in the qualifying sessions to take his sixth and seventh pole positions of the season.
Though the penultimate race of the weekend was a slow burner compared to the opening show on Saturday, a race which went time certain thanks to two safety car periods, it resulted in a controlling win for McLaughlin and a double podium for DJR Team Penske thanks to Fabian Coulthard getting on the last step of the dais.
Coulthard had a chance to challenge his team-mate for the race victory but ended up locking a brake at Turn 1 as McLaughlin came out of the pits, losing a spot to Whincup in the process which moved the Triple Eight driver up to second by the end of the race.
It was an all DJRTP and Triple Eight top four with Shane van Gisbergen just managing to fend off David Reynolds as the Erebus Motorsport driver came home less than a second behind the Kiwi. Nick Percat bounced back from a DNF in Saturday to take sixth for Brad Jones Racing, just ahead of race 13 winner Anton de Pasquale.
The seventh place finish for de Pasquale put him in the round points lead heading in to the final race but had already burned up two sets of his Dunlop soft tyres in the opening race en route to victory, as a few others had in the search of a single strong result over consistent postings.
From the inside line, McLaughlin got a better run in to Turn 1 for the final race of the weekend over Whincup as Chaz Mostert managed to get his Walkinshaw Andretti United machine past van Gisbergen for third.
Mostert soon proved to be the cork in the bottle as he lost the best part of a second a lap from Whincup and McLaughlin, holding up van Gisbergen and Coulthard as well as a chain of top ten runners behind him.
The two alternate strategies after the pit stops of fresh rear tyres on Whincup’s car and working side rubber only on McLaughlin’s entry meant different management tactics to get the Dunlops to the end of the race, both having to run for almost 30 laps on their existing rubber.
Whincup’s lead wavered between a car-length to no more than a second throughout the closing stint but he managed to stretch out a comfortable margin to take the victory over McLaughlin, giving him his second win of 2020 and his 120th championship race win.
With the round win, Whincup has now narrowed up the points gap to McLaughlin’s championship lead to 101 as they both stretch their gap over the rest of the pack thanks to a consistent showing across the weekend.
Darwin will host the first ever back-to-back race weekend at the same circuit as the series returns to the Hidden Valley venue next week, heading to the halfway point of a four-week straight run on the road.
