MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin closes in

DJR Team Penske teammates Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin split the wins in the weekend’s Darwin round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship (VASC) and are now running one-two.

On a typically hot and sweaty top-end weekend, Coulthard went 1-4 in in Saturday’s 120km race and Sunday’s 200km outing. McLaughlin went 2-1 to jump Red Bull Holden Racing Team’s (RBHRT) Jamie Whincup on the points table and to close to within 10 points of his teammate.

It was McLaughlin’s fourth win in his last six starts. Indeed, he could very well have made it a double in the Northern Territory by also winning on Saturday, if not for a self-admitted “brain fart” when he made a lunge for the lead on lap two and ran off.

Coulthard benefitted from McLaughlin’s error and a terrific strategy call to pit early in Saturday’s race, undercut the leaders and emerge with the win.

On Sunday, Coulthard did not have the tyre life to challenge again, but he grittily defended late in the race as Holden drivers Tim Slade and Craig Lowndes literally pushed him hard to pass.

“Today was all about championship points,” said Coulthard.

“I came into this weekend with a four-point lead, and it’s now 10 so I’ve got to take that positive. When fourth is a bad day, it's not too bad at all.”

McLaughlin qualified second on Saturday and then went one better on Sunday, claiming the Armor All Top 10 shootout by three tenths of a second to record his sixth 217 pole.

In the race, he simply had better tyre life than Whincup, who was second on the grid and led the early laps after a great start.

The shared wins by the DJR Team Penske (DJRTP) drivers mean New Zealanders have now won 11 of 12 races in 2017. Meanwhile, the Ford Falcon FG X has won eight times.

Whincup went 4-2 over the weekend to maintain his consistency, but remains frustrated by his inability to win in 2017. He is third in the championship 16 points behind Coulthard.

But Whincup fared far better than teammate and defending VASC championship Shane van Gisbergen. Frustrated all weekend by a car that refused to behave, he popped a right rear tyre and then broke his steering during a tangle with Jason Bright and Garth Tander on Saturday as he tried to climb back through the field. He fought back to third on Sunday but is now 178 points Behind Coulthard.

The continued domination by DJRTP and RBHRT meant the rest of the field didn’t gain too much glory.

Rick Kelly brightened things up at Nissan Motorsport with pole for Saturday’s race. He held an early lead but was shuffled back through the pit stop exchanges and crashed out with stuck throttle. He took some points from the weekend with 10th on Sunday.

Brad Jones Racing had its best outing of 2017, with Nick Percat third on Saturday and Slade (Freightliner) fifth on Sunday.

David Reynolds qualified and raced in the top 10 all weekend in the Erebus Motorsport Penrite Commodore, while James Moffat qualified fourth on Sunday in the GRM Holden but had his chances foiled by a puncture.

Scott Pye gave the struggling Walkinshaw Racing squad something to smile about with eighth on Sunday.

Prodrive Racing Australia, usually a force in Darwin, was not on the pace. Mark Winterbottom was stuck in the pack in the Bottle-O Falcon, with Cameron Waters the only team driver to finish both races in the top 10, going 6-9.

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pointscore:
1. Fabian Coulthard Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X – 1330
2. Scott McLaughlin Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X – 1320
3. Jamie Whincup Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF – 1314
4. Shane van Gisbergen Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VF – 1152
5. Chaz Mostert Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon FG X – 1026
6. Mark Winterbottom The Bottle-O Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X – 924
7. Craig Lowndes Team Vortex Holden Commodore VF – 924
8. David Reynolds Erebus Penrite Racing Holden Commodore VF – 903
9. Cameron Waters Monster Energy Racing Ford Falcon FG X – 889
10. Garth Tander Wilson Security Racing GRM Holden Commodore VF – 888