Gold Coast Supercars: Van Gisbergen wins crash-affected race
Shane van Gisbergen cruised to victory in a second Gold Coast race marred by a fiery early pile-up.
The race got off to a controversial start, Will Davison drawing level with van Gisbergen on the run to the first corner before the pair tried to get through the chicane side-by-side.
As the car on the outside of Turn 1 Davison then opted to straightline the chicane which helped him take a lead.
Race control briefly assessed whether a redress was required before decided on no further action.
Davison was able to swiftly establish a small lead, however his early advantage was erased on the fourth lap when the race was red-flagged.
The crash took Golding, Todd Hazelwood, Broc Feeney, Lee Holdsworth, Nick Percat and Macauley Jones out of the race, while James Courtney and Thomas Randle would get back on track, but many laps down.
Thankfully there were no serious injuries.
Lap 4 crash
Photo by: Edge Photographics
Following a lengthy clean-up the heavily reduced field got going behind the safety car before the race went green on Lap 9.
This time Davison wasn't able to get a break on van Gisbergen, the Kiwi peppering the back of the Shell Ford for the first two laps.
He then dived under Davison at Turn 11 to grab the lead before putting more than two seconds on the field over the next five laps.
By the time Davison made his first stop on Lap 25 the gap has blown out to 5.5s, Davison emerging from that service behind a short-filling Chaz Mostert, who had pitted from third three laps earlier.
When van Gisbergen pitted on Lap 28 he too found himself behind Mostert, who used that first short stop to jump into the effective lead.
Van Gisbergen was able to comfortably eat into what was initially a 3s lead as the second stint wore on, the gap under a second by the mid-way point of the race.
By Lap 45 van Gisbergen was right under Mostert's rear wing, Mostert responding by diving into the pits for his second stop.
Davison did likewise three laps later, by which point he was the best part of 5s adrift of van Gisbergen.
The Shell Ford resumed around 1.5s behind Mostert, while van Gisbergen waited until Lap 51 to take his second stop.
As expected he resumed well clear of Mostert, van Gisbergen's effective lead a healthy 3.3s as he started his third stint.
With 15 laps to go the gap was out over 6s only for Randle to stop on track and trigger a safety car.
But while the caution put Mostert and Davison on van Gisbergen's bumper, the champion-elect was easily able to pull a gap once the race went green again with 11 laps to go.
In typical van Gisbergen fashion he then controlled the run to the flag, coming home 2.1s ahead of Mostert and Davison.
The win extended his record season wins tally to 21 as well as sealing the teams' championship for Triple Eight.
"I was pretty angry at the start, how they let [Davison] cut the chicane," said van Gisbergen. "So I was pretty fired up and sent it all race.
"That was awesome. Thanks to my team. What a great weekend and an awesome way to seal the championship."
David Reynolds finished fourth while Brodie Kostecki pulled off a forceful move on Cam Waters at the hairpin with four laps to go to grab fifth.
Waters then got shuffled back to sixth by Mark Winterbottom amid a clumsy clash started by Will Brown at Turn 11.
Brown got into the back of Scott Pye who then clipped Waters, the latter able to continue while the former was left nosed into the barriers.
Pye did get going again and finished 13th on the road, however he was already carrying a 15-second time penalty for a restart infringement and was dumped further down the order.
Brown copped a 15-second penalty of his own for his role in the clash which dropped him from eighth on the road to 12th.
That promoted Andre Heimgartner to eighth ahead of Chris Pither and Anton De Pasquale, although the DJR driver is subject to a post-race investigation regarding minimum tyre pressures.
The 2022 Supercars season concludes on the streets of Adelaide on the first weekend in December.
2022 Gold Coast 500 Race 2 results
Cla | # | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Interval |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 97 | Shane van Gisbergen | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'20.3212 | ||
2 | 25 | Chaz Mostert | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'22.4308 | 2.1096 | 2.1096 |
3 | 17 | Will Davison | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'23.8233 | 3.5021 | 1.3925 |
4 | 26 | David Reynolds | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'25.6939 | 5.3727 | 1.8706 |
5 | 99 | Brodie Kostecki | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'28.6219 | 8.3007 | 2.9280 |
6 | 18 | Mark Winterbottom | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'30.7335 | 10.4123 | 2.1116 |
7 | 6 | Cameron Waters | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'32.5596 | 12.2384 | 1.8261 |
8 | 8 | Andre Heimgartner | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'33.6635 | 13.3423 | 1.1039 |
9 | 22 | Chris Pither | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'34.4837 | 14.1625 | 0.8202 |
10 | 11 | Anton De Pasquale | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'35.0161 | 14.6949 | 0.5324 |
11 | 3 | Tim Slade | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'35.6100 | 15.2888 | 0.5939 |
12 | 9 | Will Brown | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'48.1316 | 27.8104 | 12.5216 |
13 | 20 | Scott Pye | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:20'06.6348 | 46.3136 | 18.5032 |
14 | 14 | Bryce Fullwood | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'36.8953 | 1 Lap | 1 Lap |
15 | 4 | Jack Smith | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:19'47.4734 | 1 Lap | 10.5781 |
16 | 56 | Jake Kostecki | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'50.4930 | 17 Laps | 16 Laps |
17 | 34 | Jack Le Brocq | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:20'11.1177 | 19 Laps | 2 Laps |
18 | 5 | James Courtney | Ford Mustang GT | 2:19'40.0900 | 21 Laps | 2 Laps |
55 | Thomas Randle | Ford Mustang GT | 2:03'47.3379 | 35 Laps | 14 Laps | |
31 | James Golding | Holden Commodore ZB | 3'47.7454 | 82 Laps | 47 Laps | |
88 | Broc Feeney | Holden Commodore ZB | 3'49.1029 | 82 Laps | 1.3575 | |
10 | Lee Holdsworth | Ford Mustang GT | 3'50.0737 | 82 Laps | 0.9708 | |
35 | Todd Hazelwood | Holden Commodore ZB | 3'50.5986 | 82 Laps | 0.5249 | |
2 | Nick Percat | Holden Commodore ZB | 3'51.3742 | 82 Laps | 0.7756 | |
96 | Macauley Jones | Holden Commodore ZB | 3'51.8300 | 82 Laps | 0.4558 | |
View full results |
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