Anton De Pasquale holds off charging Will Brown to grab race three honours

Anton De Pasquale bounced back from his exclusion from race two to grab a second win of the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park, holding off a charging Will Brown to secure victory.

Brown appeared to get away better when the lights went out but in the second phase of the start, De Pasquale streaked ahead to lead the way into turn one ahead of Will Brown, with Jamie Whincup keeping team-mate Shane van Gisbergen at bay.

Will Davison, Nick Percat and Chaz Mosert all up ground behind as Brad Kostecki lost places, with the Erebus man being shuffled back down the order in the opening laps.

Chaotic fighting in the midfield would result in Todd Hazelwood being forced to pit with damage before the race settled down on track prior to the pit window kicking off when Kostecki and Tim Slade dived in to make their mandatory stop on lap seven.

Davison then came in a lap later from fifth spot, becoming the first of the front-runners to make the call to go early.

De Pasquale opened up a lead of more than three seconds over Brown before pitting at the end of lap eleven, with van Gisbergen following him in from fourth as Brown inherited the lead of the race.

With one of De Pasquale’s tyres showing signs of delamination the majority of the field would also pit earlier than they had done in the opening two races, with Brown and Whincup two of those to leave it later to dive in – staying out on track until the end of lap 16.

Within a lap, the final drivers made their mandatory visit to the pits which left De Pasquale back at the front but with an extended advantage over Brown of more than nine seconds, with Davison’s early stop allowing him to jump ahead of both van Gisbergen and Whincup – albeit with the Triple Eight pair running on newer rubber.

Whilst that meant the front of the race was largely as it had been before the tops, Percat had been a big loser during the stops, slipping all the way to P12.

On newer rubber, Brown started to close in on De Pasquale at the front and the gap was down to under five seconds by the end of lap 22, with Whincup pushing to try and get back ahead of van Gisbergen for third – grabbing the spot on lap 24 after the pair ran side-by-side on track.

Brown’s charge continued so that by the end of lap 27, he had closed to within a second of De Pasquale at the front – giving the Erebus man five laps to try and find a way through.

Brown almost got his nose up the inside at turn two but couldn’t get ahead, with De Pasquale able to respond to the pressure behind to hold onto the lead.

With Brown having pushed his tyres hard to close the gap, De Pasquale kept Brown at bay and then started to gradually edge away through the final two laps to take the win by little over a second, although second still marked Brown’s best result to date.

Whincup rounded out the podium from van Gisbergen and Davison, with Cam Waters passing Chaz Mostert late on to complete the top six.