MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin leads Supercars

Just days after announcing the introduction of the Mustang body shape to Supercar racing next year, Ford’s FG Falcon has proven it’s still very much a winner – at least the DJR Team Penske version in the hands of Scott McLaughlin.

The 24-year-old New Zealander now leads the Virgin Australia Supercars championship by 60 points after 10 races, having won both 250km legs of the weekend’s Phillip Island 500.

All three participating makes were represented on the podium both days, and it was a particularly good weekend for Nissan. Rick Kelly crossed the line third in both legs and was promoted to second on Saturday after a penalty on previous championship leader Jamie Whincup.

It was the first time a Nissan driver had been on the rostrum since Michael Caruso’s 2016 victory in Darwin, and Kelly’s first podium since 2015 at Sydney’s now-gone Homebush street event. It was 2006 series champion Kelly’s first double podium since Phillip Island in 2009 (then in a VE Holden Commodore).

He led for a while on Sunday but wound up behind McLaughlin and the Erebus Motorsport ZB Holden of David Reynolds, with Caruso fifth – behind McLaughlin’s teammate and countryman Fabian Coulthard.

However, it was not so good for the major Holden teams -- Triple Eight HRT and Walkinshaw Andretti United, or Ford squad Prodrive. That said, T8 still leads the Penske outfit by 45 points in the teams’ championship.

Seven-time champion Whincup has dropped to fifth in the drivers’ championship. He is now 142 points behind the man he fought to the wire at last year’s finale at Newcastle, McLaughlin.

Reynolds is second and Whincup’s stablemates Shane Van Gisbergen and Craig Lowndes are third and fourth.

Despite the much better round for the usually-struggling Nissan Altimas, Kelly and Caruso are still 13th and 15th, sandwiching Prodrive’s 2015 champion, Mark Winterbottom.

Kelly said his double podium was “very exciting for myself and the whole team”.

“Everyone has put in a lot of work over the last few months to bridge the gap and we've shown good potential towards that this weekend,” he said.

“We learned a lot. Now we can take that back to the factory and get ready for the next round in Perth [on the first weekend of May].”

Team principal, brother Todd Kelly, said Saturday’s result had “turned a few heads” but left everyone in the Supercars world wondering “how genuine was it? And whether we could back it up on the Sunday.”

“Today [Sunday] just showed the car is genuinely there, around this [flowing] style of track in particular,” he said.

“We are good enough to be exactly where Rick raced and to have the lead and generate a gap [of almost 3sec mid-race] was really impressive. I’m really proud of what the guys have done.”

Ford now has three wins for the season (all by McLaughlin, the most by any driver) while Holden has seven. Whincup and Van Gisbergen have two each and Walkinshaw’s Scott Pye, Reynolds and Lowndes each have one win.

After Ford, Penske and McLaughlin’s latest success, the Holden camp will turn its attention to improving the front splitters on the ZB Commodores following a series of failures at Phillip Island.

McLaughlin has become the man at Victoria’s seaside circuit and was thrilled that this time he had converted his pole positions into victories, overtaking Whincup and Reynolds respectively in the two races in doing so.

“I’ve had an awesome ‘rocketship’ all weekend,” he said.

“I need to be consistent all year to be able to get it [the championship] done, which we didn’t do last year, and this is a good start.”

Reynolds too was delighted with how his weekend ended up, after having been “nowhere” in practice. He said Erebus was functioning very well, cross-referencing his Commodore and that of teammate Anton De Pasquale.

De Pasquale was the top rookie at the event – seventh (behind Reynolds) on Saturday and 16th Sunday, although the latter could have been much higher without double-stacking in the pits.

A 38sec post-race penalty for Whincup on Saturday, for turning off his speed limiter before reaching the end of pitlane after his first stop, dropped him from narrow runner-up to 14th that day. On Sunday he was ninth as McLaughlin stretched the series lead he had seized the previous day.

Van Gisbergen and Lowndes worked together on Saturday trying to overhaul Kelly (Kiwi ‘Giz’ moving aside to give the old hand a crack, before they reversed order at the finish) but the pair came into contact on Sunday.

Van Gisbergen promptly gave back the place he gained but, with much fresher tyres, soon got by and later apologised to Lowndes, who accepted it had been “an honest mistake”.

Virgin Australia Supercars Championship pointscore
1 Scott McLaughlin Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 947
2 David Reynolds Erebus Penrite Racing Holden Commodore ZB 887
3 Shane van Gisbergen Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore ZB 849
4 Craig Lowndes Autobarn Lowndes Racing Holden Commodore ZB 813
5 Jamie Whincup Red Bull Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore ZB 805
6 Scott Pye Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing Holden Commodore ZB 745
7 Chaz Mostert Supercheap Auto Racing Ford Falcon FG X 695
8 James Courtney Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing Holden Commodore ZB 678
9 Fabian Coulthard Shell V-Power Racing Team Ford Falcon FG X 662
10 Tim Slade Freightliner Racing Holden Commodore ZB 626