MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin dominates Darwin

Defending Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin has taken another step toward a title three-peat by winning all three races in Darwin over the weekend.

The DJR Team Penske Ford Mustang driver entered the second consecutive Hidden Valley meeting with a 101-point lead over factory Holden driver Jamie Whincup and exited 177 points ahead.

“It’s all preparation and I’m just really proud today because the car was phenomenal,” said McLaughlin.

His winning margins in each of the 38-lap 110km races spoke of his increasing dominance; 2.5 seconds over Whincup and Tickford’s Cam Waters on Saturday; almost 10 sec over Whincup’s teammate Shane Van Gisbergen and Team 18’s Scott Pye in Sunday’s first race, then 14 seconds ahead of Brad Jones Racing’s Nick Percat and Pye again, who scored back-to-back podiums for the first time.

The three victories also elevated McLaughlin to 51 wins and past Holden legend Peter Brock on the championship’s winners list. But there are caveats in that – which Mclaughlin acknowledged – with many more races conducted these days.

While stellar starts off the front row – once from pole and twice from second place – gave McLaughlin a platform he exploited to the full, the rest of the field got stuck into some robust racing in hot conditions.

Highlights included a ‘rubbing is racing’ to and fro for a top six spot between Percat and Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert in Sunday’s first outing that ended with the BJR Holden bumped off at turn one and his rival hit with a 15-second penalty.

Another was the fight for fourth between van Gisbergen and Team 18’s Mark Winterbottom in the final race that was eventually resolved in the customer team’s favour.

Again, there was controversy, as the Red Bull Holden Racing Team asked the race director to examine the nudge that helped Winterbottom finally get past van Gisbergen. They gave it the thumbs up.

While Team 18 got the edge in the final race on the track over the team it buys cars and expertise from, Whincup and van Gisbergen were second and third on points for the weekend and claimed a pole position apiece. Van Gisbergen showed better pace on Sunday after an overnight engine change.

Pye, Percat, Tickford Racing’s James Courtney, Winterbottom and McLaughlin’s teammate Fabian Coulthard completed the top eight.

The meeting returned Supercars to a more predictable all-soft tyre format after controversially mixing hard and soft Dunlops together for the last two meetings.

The low degradation surface meant the tyres lasted well. Pye’s identical finishes came after stopping late for fresh rubber and then stopping early and running long.

“We could make either strategy work with the pace we had this weekend,” Pye said.

The championship is halfway through four consecutive events as the calendar adjusts to the coronavirus. The teams are now headed to Townsville’s Reid Park for two more weekends of sprint racing.

Each event will have five sets of soft for qualifying and racing with increased tyre wear expected compared to Darwin. That means the potential exists for some unlikely results.

Beyond Townsville, it is expected there could be another double-header at Queensland Raceway in late September ahead of the Bathurst 1000, which is shaping as the championship finale.

2020 Supercars standings:
Scott McLaughlin – 1324
Jamie Whincup – 1147
Shane van Gisbergen – 979
Chaz Mostert – 972
Nick Percat – 915
Cam Waters – 893
Mark Winterbottom - 890
David Reynolds – 872
Fabian Coulthard – 862
Lee Holdsworth – 845