MOTORSPORT: Giz holds firm in Supercars title fight

Shane van Gisbergen has one hand on the Repco Supercars Championship trophy despite the worst result of his 2021 season at Sydney Motorsport Park (SMP).

A first and a second placing more than offset a miserable 14th in the rain-lashed finale to a triple-header on the second leg of a four-weekend swing through Sydney on the way to Bathurst next month.

The speedy Kiwi now has a 337-point break over his retiring teammate at the Red Bull Ampol Racing Team, Jamie Whincup, and both are finally prepared to break the embargo on championship talk.

“He’s a full round ahead, and he’s still probably the quickest out there. I’m just trying to get as many points as I can, and stand on the podium as often as I can,” said Whincup.

“Every win, every podium, I treat it like it’s my last.”

Previously, van Gisbergen said he would not talk about the prospects for a second Supercars title – his first was in 2016 – until he had a 300-point break.

“I’m just going flat-out. I haven’t adjusted anything yet,” he said. “I’m not driving like that. I’m trying to win every race.

“I’m racing for fun and enjoyment.”

So Whincup took one win, so did SvG, and the third went to Anton De Pasquale of the Shell V-Power team.

De Pasquale also took third in the sodden final sprint, but could have expected more without a gearbox failure in one qualifying session that sent him to the rear of the grid for race two.

“Not a bad weekend, but it could have been better,” he said.

carsales’ own Luke Youlden received an unexpected call-up to substitute for David Reynolds at Kelly Grove Racing when the regular Ford Mustang pilot ran into a COVID-19 roadblock after a controversial first weekend at SMP.

He adjusted quickly, ran strongly through the weekend and earned praise from team boss Todd Kelly.

“We were all blown away with the job Luke did. He didn’t put a foot wrong and he was running head-to-head with the top blokes. It was great preparation for him, too, for Bathurst next month,” said Kelly.

There was some solid racing through SMP2, as fan numbers grew after a small crowd for the return to racing, and some tough love between van Gisbergen and Will Davison in the other Shell Mustang.

Davison was clearly unhappy after being muscled aside in practice, then again at the first corner in race two, and van Gisbergen added an insult after Davison followed him to the flag when he wise-cracked: “The good DJR car (De Pasquale) wasn’t up the front.”

The real excitement came in the third race of the weekend, under lights and under heavy rain, with racy action, seven big crashes, and an early finish when safety concerns led to a stoppage.

Chaz Mostert starred when he drove from dead-last, after being rubbed from qualifying for an illegal front air dam, to third place.

“I had a lot of fun. Obviously, the guys I passed wouldn’t have been happy. But I had a ball,” said Mostert.

He and the Walkinshaw Andretti United crew had been struggling for speed through the SMP2 swing, like the Tickford Team which celebrated like they had won when James Courtney took his first podium for more than a year in the Boost Mustang in race two.

But he was speaking for the whole pitlane as he cast forward to the SMP3 battle that continues the Supercars revival.

“We’ll go back through the play book and see what we can come up with for next weekend,” said Mostert.

Race 1 – 32 laps

Race 2 – 32 laps

Race 3 – 23 laps (red flag)

2021 Repco Supercars Championship standings: