Townsville Supercars: Waters holds off van Gisbergen in finale

The pair staged a see-sawing battle across the 39-lap journey, Waters leading the first few laps before van Gisbergen barged past at the last corner.

Van Gisbergen controlled the remainder of the first stint, which came to abrupt end when Macauley Jones clattered into wall at Turn 10 on Lap 17.

Triple Eight responded to the subsequent safety car by bringing van Gisbergen straight into the pits, while Tickford rolled the dice on Waters being able to get to the control line before the Safety Car.

The bold strategic move paid off, Waters able to promptly complete another lap, take his mandatory service and emerge with the lead.

Van Gisbergen dropped back to third behind Will Davison, who had stopped three laps before the Safety Car, but got back into second a few corners after the Lap 24 restart.

He then quickly latched onto the back of Waters to begin a wheel-to-wheel battle that basically didn't stop until the chequered flag.

While van Gisbergen looked the quicker of the two, Waters was brilliant in defence as he held off an unrelenting challenge.

It was until a couple of laps from home that van Gisbergen seemed to call off the challenge, Waters winning the race by eight-tenths.

"I don't really know what happened with the pitstop," said Waters. "But we had a pretty good race car, I was hanging on to Shane in that first stint. I came out in front of him and I was pushing as quick as I could. 

"I had a mega battle with him, it was really cool. It's awesome to get one on him. It's awesome racing Shane, he's so good at racing people but there's always a fair bit of respect there. We were side-by-side in Turn 2 and we were giving each other the shakas, having a bit of fun with it."

Van Gisbergen was equally enthused by he battle, despite not finding a way through.

"It was awesome fun," said the Kiwi. "What a great battle. He put it all in the right spots. Down the straights I was giving him the thumbs up. I really enjoyed it. 

"I would have loved to have won, I was a little b it unlucky with the safety car, but that's the way it goes."

Davison came home third, just 1.3s behind the lead pair, while Todd Hazelwood put in an impressive drive to score fourth place for Brad Jones Racing.

Anton De Pasquale finished fifth after making up a couple of spots shortly after the restart, followed by Jamie Whincup, James Courtney and Mark Winterbottom.

Shane van Gisbergen now leads the series by 276 points. 

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Gap
1	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT
2	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	0.876
3	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	1.357
4	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	6.653
5	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	7.924
6	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	12.300
7	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	15.478
8	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	15.898
9	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	17.877
10	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	18.789
11	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	24.360
12	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	24.931
13	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	25.654
14	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	27.178
15	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	27.615
16	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	28.884
17	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	29.631
18	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	29.971
19	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	35.481
20	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	36.259
21	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	36.294
22	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	39.422
23	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT
	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB
View full results