Tasmania S5000: Mawson wins to start Gold Star defence

From the outside of the front row, Mawson got the jump on pole-sitter James Golding at the start to grab the lead heading into the first corner complex.

The reigning Gold Star winner held a comfortable, albeit still rather narrow, advantage over the Golding for the first phase of the race.

However as the race neared half-distance Golding became to turn the screw on the leader, closing up on Mawson's gearbox.

Mawson was up to the challenge, though, staving off Golding's advances for the 10 laps that followed.

At that point Golding appeared to call off his charge, Mawson extending the gap to 1.1s as he sealed a perfect start to his title defence.

He also lowered his own race lap record in the process.

"It's really good to get the season started with a win," said Mawson.

"I knew that starting P2 we would have the better side of the grid. Thankfully I used that to my advantage.

"It's very difficult to follow in these cars so I knew once I got in the lead as long as I didn't make any mistakes the victory should be mine."

Golding, meanwhile, was left to rue a poor start.

"The lights went off super quick, I didn't quite have the grab point yet," he said. "There's a long way to go so let's worry about the next one."

Supercars regular Tim Slade finished third on his S5000 debut. He did briefly drop back to third behind Cooper Webster at the start, but was able to reclaim third at Turn 6 on the opening lap.

Webster finished a somewhat lonely fourth place ahead of Tim Macrow, Blake Purdie and Josh Fife.

Adam Garwood and Kaleb Ngatoa rounded out the field.

The S5000 action continues to tomorrow with two races at 1:50pm and 3:40pm local time.

Watch all of the S5000 action from Symmons Plains live on Motorsport.tv.