Shane van Gisbergen beats De Pasquale in Supercars opener
Shane van Gisbergen kicked off the defence of his Supercars title in fine fashion by getting the better of a strategic battle with Anton de Pasquale at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver started second on the grid behind pole-sitter De Pasquale but made the most of a three-stop strategy to round up his Dick Johnson Racing rival in the closing stages and take his 55th career victory.
Chaz Mostert, on a similar strategy to van Gisbergen, charged through from eighth on the grid to claim the final step on the podium for Walkinshaw Andretti United.
Having stormed to pole position in the Top 10 shootout earlier in the day, De Pasquale got a good getaway off the line and led van Gisbergen while Erebus Racing’s Will Brown leapt from fifth on the grid to run third early on.
Dunlop brought two tyre compounds to the opening round, with every car needing to run on the faster supersoft at least once during the 77-lap race. The threat of rain – expected at the end of the race but which ultimately never arrived – forced some teams to leave their supersofts until the final stint while some elected to fit them at the start.
Brad Jones Racing’s new recruit Andre Heimgartner was one of those to start with the quicker compound and, despite initially dropping to sixth from fourth on the opening lap, made significant gains during the opening stint.
The Kiwi, who made the off-season switch from Grove Racing, recouped the lost positions off the line and passed both Brown and van Gisbergen on the fourth lap before seizing the lead from De Pasquale down the inside of Turn 6 on the eighth lap.
Heimgartner then built up a lead of five seconds over an impressive 24-lap opening stint for the supersoft tyre, but eventually fell down the order after the first pit-stops. Things got even worse for him in the closing stages after being forced into the pits with an issue.
The first of the frontrunners to make their stop was van Gisbergen on lap 21, while Heimgartner and De Pasquale pitted together four laps later. The former switched to softs while De Pasquale fitted supersofts for the middle stint.
Van Gisbergen came in for his second stop on lap 42 to take on supersoft tyres, handing the lead back to De Pasquale who had forced his way back ahead of Heimgartner after the first round of stops.
The fact that De Pasquale was able to maintain a 10s lead was impressive in itself given the DJR driver had to battle terrible visibility with a clogged windscreen. He pitted on lap 53 for softs with van Gisbergen taking his Holden Commodore to the end of its fuel capacity before making his final stop.
By the time van Gisbergen emerged from his stop in third, the game was up for De Pasquale and leader Brown, whose tyres were in a far worse condition than the reigning champion’s fresh softs.
Such was the extent of Brown’s troubles that the Erebus driver was lapping 20th fastest on his worns tyres and was no threat to De Pasquale who took the lead at Turn 5 with 11 laps to go.
But it was all over in terms of the battle for the win, as van Gisbergen immediately pounced around the outside of Brown at Turn 8 and then breezing past De Pasquale down the main straight.
Van Gisbergen duly took the victory by over 19 seconds, with De Pasquale a comfortable second ahead of Mostert, who used his supersoft tyres to usurp Davison in the dying laps.
Behind Davison, Brodie Kostecki finished fifth for Erebus, with Mostert’s new team-mate Nick Percat claiming sixth on his return to the Walkinshaw team.
Brown struggled home to claim seventh, ahead of Tim Slade and new Red Bull recruit Broc Feeney who put in an impressive performance.
James Courtney completed the top 10 in his Tickford Racing Ford Mustang.
Race 2 is scheduled to take place on Sunday at 14:30 local time (04:30 CET)
