MOTORSPORT: McLaughlin secures Supercars title three-peat

Ford Mustang driver Scott McLaughlin has won his third successive Supercars championship and can now head to the Bathurst 1000 season finale in three weeks focusing on a second consecutive victory in the Great Race.

McLaughlin entered the second consecutive weekend of Supercars racing at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia leading factory Holden driver Jamie Whincup by 215 points and exited with an unbeatable 305-point advantage.

“It’s awesome,” said the DJR Team Penske driver. “Now we can focus on Bathurst and have a massive crack at it.”

McLaughlin’s weekend was almost perfect. The 27-year-old qualified on pole for all three 110km races and then went on to win the first two, only slipping back to second behind fast-starting Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters in the final outing.

An additional sweetener for Blue Oval fans was Ford’s win in the manufacturers’ title, which is awarded on the basis of race wins. It now has 16 to Holden’s 10.

Underlining his dominance and his rare talent, McLaughlin has won 13 of those races.

McLaughlin is the first driver to three-peat since Whincup in 2011-13 (on the way to a four-peat) and joins Peter Brock as a three-time championship winner.

The Bend could have been the last time McLaughlin races solo in the Supercars championship, as he will contest the final round of the IndyCar series in the USA for Team Penske in late October.

There is a real prospect he will then shift full-time to the open-wheeler series next year. There is also a chance DJRTP majority owner Roger Penske could quit his Australian Supercars team after Bathurst.

Whincup’s attempt to keep the title fight alive to Bathurst never really got into top gear. The seven-time champ qualified 14th and finished 10th in race one, was seventh after a pit stop error in race two and then finally had a good run to third in race three.

“Big congrats to Scotty and his team for an amazing year,” Whincup said. “We did everything we could to take the championship to Bathurst but we were not quite quick enough or consistent enough.”

For Waters the lights-to-flag victory was his first as a solo driver, although he did win the 2017 Sandown 500 for Tickford with Kiwi Richie Stanaway.

It was also a laudable result for the Victorian team, which has been on the road since July because of the coronavirus lockdown.

“We made some changes to the car between races today and made it a bit better,” said Waters. “I knew I just needed a good start and I finally got one, and we were away.

“We had a fast car in clean air and the boys did a mega job in the pit stop, so it’s great to reward them for all their hard work.”

Other drivers to have good moments at the weekend included Whincup’s team-mate Shane van Gisbergen and Erebus Motorsports’ Anton De Pasquale, who claimed second place in race one and two respectively.

While typically close in qualifying, the Supercars debut on The Bend’s West circuit wasn’t as action-packed as the previous weekend’s racing on the longer International circuit, where tyre wear was a much more significant factor.

Van Gisbergen was able to close up on McLaughlin in Saturday’s race one on fresher tyres, but couldn’t have a crack at a pass, complaining about the turbulence aerodynamic wash creates.

“It’s aero wash, it’s a low deg track,” said van Gisbergen post-race. “It really is a qualifying series now.”

It remains to be seen whether Supercars will do anything about the situation between seasons because 2021 is the final year of the Gen2 technical regulations and money is tight.

With the drivers’ championship resolved DJRTP and T8 now have the teams’ championship to fight out. It’s important because the prize is the strategically advantageous position at the pitlane exit.

At the moment DJRTP has a 100-point lead, but there’s a total of 576 points available as the results of both team cars are taken into account.

It would have been closer except T8 was penalised 30 points when Whincup ran over a rattle gun during his botched race two stop. On the flipside, it could have been a bigger margin if Mclaughlin’s team-mate Fabian Coulthard hadn’t suffered a driveline failure while running second in race two.

If Triple Eight doesn’t retake the teams title or win Bathurst, it will be the second year in a row it has failed to collect one of the big three pieces of silverware allocated in Supercars racing.

Before that it had claimed at least one of them every year since 2005.

Bathurst 2020 will be the final Supercars/touring car championship race Holden will officially race in as the brand is being axed by General Motors.

2020 Supercars standings:
Scott McLaughlin – 2354
Jamie Whincup – 2049
Cam Waters – 1849
Shane van Gisbergen – 1795
Chaz Mostert – 1700
Nick Percat – 1641
Fabian Coulthard – 1560
Anton De Pasquale – 1469
Mark Winterbottom – 1386
Scott Pye – 1382