Shane van Gisbergen adds to win tally in Sydney’s Sunday opener
Shane van Gisbergen added another victory to his 2021 record with a hard-fought win in the second Supercars race of the weekend in Sydney.
This time around, Anton De Pasquale was slow away from pole and got swamped on the run to T1 with Davison leading from Brodie Kostecki and Shane van Gisbergen, and the polesitter dropping back down to P7 through the opening corners.
Before the end of the lap, van Gisbergen had nipped ahead of Kostecki into second, with team-mate Jamie Whincup in fourth coming under huge pressure from Nick Percat in the battle for fourth. David Reynolds was the other big mover, jumping four spots early on to climb into the top ten.
The positions would remain static after the opening lap skirmishes leading to Tim Slade diving in from tenth at the end of the sixth lap to kick off the mandatory pit stops in a bid to go long with his second stint to make up ground.
As Davison built a lead out front, De Pasquale was making no progress after his tardy start so dived into the pits at the end of the eighth lap for new rubber and rejoined the circuit in clear air; immediately setting personal best times one he rejoined the circuit.
Kostecki and Percat were next of the front-runners to pit as they came in on lap 13, with both Davison in a lap later.
With Davison struggling with no dash, he was slow in the stop which allowed van Gisbergen to get ahead, although both would rejoin behind De Pasquale – who found himself as defacto leader.
When James Courtney became the final driver to pit at the end of lap 19, De Pasquale found himself leading Slade by little more than two seconds bit with Van Gisbergen and Davison giving chase – and the pair quickly cleared the Mustang before setting off after the leader.
Kostecki, who had set the fastest lap shortly after his stop, was also giving chase and got ahead of Slade into fourth.
With De Pasquale having pitted earlier, he was soon caught by Van Gisbergen who nipped ahead at turn two, with the race one winner allowing Davison to follow through into P2.
De Pasquale would then be forced to defend hard to keep Kostecki at bay, but the pair would be chased down by Nick Percat and as the race moved towards its conclusion, he managed to fight ahead of the two to move up into the podium spots.
Kostecki finally managed to get ahead of De Pasquale going onto the final lap but out front, van Gisbergen was able to hold off Davison to take a twelfth win of the campaign, with Percat rounding out the podium.
Kostecki, De Pasquale and Slade rounded out the top six from Jamie Whincup and Chaz Mostert.
