MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin extends Supercars lead

Scott McLaughlin and David Reynolds shared the glory in the Darwin heat, but it was the Ford FG X Falcon driver who extended his Supercars championship lead.

McLaughlin held off factory Holden driver Shane van Gisbergen for Saturday’s win at Hidden Valley and then chased Reynolds’ Erebus ZB Commodore home on Sunday in his smoking Ford.

As the championship nears the halfway point, the New Zealander leads fellow Kiwi van Gisbergen by 161 points, with Reynolds third 327 points off the pace.

Craig Lowndes continues his 2018 resurgence, lying fourth in the championship ahead of Triple Eight teammate and defending titleholder Jamie Whincup.

For the first time since Tasmania, McLaughlin didn’t claim a pole positon across the weekend, starting second in both races.

In Saturday’s 42-lap outing, he followed poleman Reynolds off the line, then jumped him with an early tyre stop. Despite late-race pressure from van Gisbergen on fresher tyres he hung on to win by 0.4sec.

Reynolds, who is always strong in Darwin, completed the top three another 0.8sec back.

It was an historic 100th all-time win for DJR Team Penske, most of them coming before American businessman Roger Penske purchase a majority stake when it was known as Dick Johnson Racing.

“We all know Shane is a hard charger and I respect him like no other. It certainly was great for me to hold him off and for the team. I really wanted that win badly,” McLaughlin said.

“The other (van Gisbergen) strategy was clearly faster but they (the team) had the belief in me to bring it home and thankfully I did.”

On Sunday it was the resurgent Nissan Altima of Rick Kelly on pole for the 200km outing, ahead of McLaughlin and Whincup in the top 10 shootout.

But Reynolds swept round from row two, took the lead into turn one and controlled the race through two pit stops and a late safety car intervention.

“I hung my balls out at turn one and went a bit deeper than everyone which set the race up. We also had awesome pit stops and great strategy,” the Penrite Commodore driver explained.

McLaughlin’s problems were multiple. Not only was engine temperature rising as his Shell V-Power Falcon lost oil, the cooling fan air hose had disconnected from his helmet.

“The engine was hot, I was hot and we had stuff going on everywhere,” said McLaughlin. “It was a solid day for us, we’ll take that and run.

“The car was good, but I couldn’t get close to anyone because of the heat in the engine. And with the helmet fan it was very hot, but that’s why we train so we can go hard.”

Triple Eight team boss Mark Dutton lobbied officials for a mechanical black flag as Whincup was close behind McLaughlin and copping his oil and smoke. That didn’t happen, but the seven-times champ was still able to score his first podium since Tasmania in April.

“We had the pace for second but I unfortunately stalled in the pits and dropped back a spot,” Whincup explained.

“All in all I'm pretty happy with how we ran across the weekend and also happy that we just kept improving from the start of the weekend to the end."

But the message is clear that more qualifying pace must be found in the Red Bull Holden Racing Team Commodores to launch an attack on McLaughlin the second half of the year.

Neither Whincup nor van Gisbergen have been on the front row since Perth in May and the team has gone eight races without a win.

But RBHRT’s issued are nothing compared to Tickford Racing. The four-car Ford squad endured another hellish weekend, with not one top 10 qualifying or race result.

“We tried a lot of different things this round and found out what did and didn’t work,” so hopefully we have a good baseline to work from the rest of the year,” said team principal Tim Edwards.

“Times are tough right now but we’re not giving up. We’ll get back and see what we can improve upon and sort it out to have a good run in Townsville.”

Tickford rookie Richie Stanaway even got embroiled in a cool-down lap shoving match with Walkinshaw Racing’s James Courtney on Saturday after the veteran was unimpressed with the Kiwi’s tactics in their battle for 23rd place.

Courtney was fined $1000 for pushing Stanaway off the track and Stanaway penalised five seconds for the ‘bump and run’ passing move that started the whole imbroglio.

Other notable points out of the weekend included:

- Top 10 qualifying pace for Erebus rookie Anton de Pasquale, although he couldn’t convert that to a result on either day.

- Strong fifth and seventh places for veteran Garth Tander in the GRM Commodore.

- Brad Jones Racing also showed some form with a sixth place for Nick Percat despite splitter vibration issues at the high-speed track with the ZB Commodore.

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pointscore:
1 Scott McLaughlin Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 1775
2 Shane van Gisbergen Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore ZB 1614
3 David Reynolds Erebus Penrite Racing Holden Commodore ZB 1448
4 Craig Lowndes Autobarn Lowndes Racing Holden Commodore ZB 1362
5 Jamie Whincup Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore ZB 1342
6 Scott Pye Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing Holden Commodore ZB 1279
7 Fabian Coulthard Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 1229
8 Rick Kelly Castrol Racing Nissan Altima 1216
9 Chaz Mostert Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon FG X 1109
10 James Courtney Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing Holden Commodore ZB 1104