MOTORSPORT: Coulthard heads Penske one-two
Supercars history made amidst rain storms and crashesFabian Coulthard led home DJR Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin for a historic one-two in the Tasmanian Supercars championship outing yesterday.
The impressive win in the 200km race on one of the US-owned team’s bogey tracks provided further evidence it is now a truly competitive force in a series that has been dominated by Triple Eight Race Engineering for the last decade.
This was US motor racing icon Roger Penske’s first Supercars championship race win more than two years after he bought local legend Dick Johnson’s team, it was the first for Ford at Symmons Plains since 2012 and the first for any car other than one built by Triple Eight at the Tassie bullring since 2013.
Coulthard started Sunday being awarded a 35-point penalty for his role in triggering a 12-car crash on the second lap of Saturday’s race that caused a red flag, millions of dollars of damage, eliminated four cars from Sunday’s racing and sent Bathurst champ Will Davison to hospital with suspected fractured vertebrae.
The 120km race was eventually completed after one more symbolic lap behind the safety car with defending Virgin Australia Supercars Champion Shane van Gisbergen awarded the win ahead of Red Bull Holden Racing Team teammate Jamie Whincup and category icon Craig Lowndes in the Team Vortex Holden Commodore VF.
No points were awarded and no champagne sprayed. Basically, no-one cared by then and that was fair enough.
Coulthard’s dark Sunday morning mood would have been hardly improved by qualifying sixth in the ever-present rain, knowing winners at Symmons traditionally come off the first two rows of the grid.
But as the track dried in the race, Coulthard forged forward. He benefitted from McLaughlin’s extended stop for damage repair to jump him and then took the lead from the Prodrive Falcon of Chaz Mostert when he briefly slipped off the circuit at turn seven.
Following the two Shell V-Power Racing Team Falcons home was pole qualifier Whincup, who was responsible for the damage that delayed McLaughlin. It came amidst the sort of gripping panel-to-panel racing these two seem fated to conduct.
Tassie was a rare recent outing where Whincup outraced van Gisbergen, who finished only ninth on Sunday after being awarded a 15-second penalty for spinning the carsales.com.au Nissan Altima of Todd Kelly. Our man qualified in the top 10 for both races and came away with nothing to show for it. Such is racing.
Mostert felt just as badly off. He had also made a mistake to slip out of the lead on Saturday and was ruing what might have been.
“I don't believe in bad luck, I believe in mistakes and I made a mistake today which sucks,” he said.
But Mostert is a superstar, showing convincing signs he is close to consistent full competitiveness for the first time since his horror Bathurst crash in 2015. Fellow Prodrive young gun Cam Waters is also progressing quickly in the Monster Falcon, both leaving nominal team leader Mark Winterbottom struggling behind them.
Obviously, ‘Frosty’ hasn’t forgotten how to drive but he is not getting a handle on the FG X Falcon in its current guise.
At the end of the day there were just 54 drivers’ championship points between leader van Gisbergen and fourth-placed McLaughlin. The expectation that 2017 will become a four-way fight continues to be reinforced. In the teams’ championship, SVPRT has a 12-point lead over RBHRT, a fact that will immensely displease T8 owner Roland Dane.
The next stop is super-fast Phillip Island for two 250km races in two weeks’ time. This is a track where Penske’s team showed some of its best 2016 form and where T8 has traditionally gone well. The battle is clearly on.
Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pointscore:
1 Shane van Gisbergen Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF -- 384
2 Fabian Coulthard Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG -- 364
3 Jamie Whincup Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF -- 333
4 Scott McLaughlin Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X -- 330
5 Cameron Waters Monster Energy Racing Ford Falcon FG X -- 312
6 Chaz Mostert Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon FG X -- 309
7 Craig Lowndes Team Vortex Holden Commodore VF -- 288
8 James Courtney Mobil 1 HSV Racing Holden Commodore VF -- 249
9 Tim Slade Freightliner Racing Holden Commodore VF -- 249
10 David Reynolds Erebus Penrite Racing Holden Commodore VF –231
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