New Zealand driver Scott McLaughlin has assumed the lead in the Supercars Championshipn after winning a heavyweight battle with arch rival Jamie Whincup in race one of the Phillip Island 500.
Scott McLauglin Photo: Photosport
McLaughlin and seven-time champion Whincup went toe to toe for the best part of an hour and a half on Saturday, with the young tyro prevailing in the first of two 250km races this weekend.
It elevated him into the Championship lead for the first time this year, in the same week Ford celebrated the Mustang returning to the sport in 2019.
A post-race penalty dropped Jamie Whincup from second to 14th, the Red Bull ace receiving a 38 second post-race time penalty for turning off his pitlane speed limiter prior to reaching the end of pitlane following his first pitstop.
McLaughlin established a 48-point lead over David Reynolds, with Wincup's Kiwi team-mate Shane van Gisbergen just two points back in third.
Nothing epitomised the rivalry between Whincup and McLaughlin like the start of the race when the two went door to door for the first four corners at more than 230km/h on cold tyres. Eventually McLaughlin relented, settling back into second.
By then the pair had leapt ahead of the rest and the third placed van Gisbergen by two seconds as the field settled in for the race. The first round of pit stops did not change the order of the leaders despite McLaughlin's team trying to jump Whincup is the pits.
Nissan Motorsport's Rick Kelly, in his 500th career race, popped into third when he short-filled at the first stop in the Castrol Altima, putting him ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, David Reynolds and Craig Lowndes on the track.
The former Champion, who took the title at the same circuit in 2006, scored his first podium since the Sydney 500 in 2015 in a welcome return for the two-time Bathurst winner. It made for a Ford-Holden-Nissan podium with all three manufacturers spraying the champagne.
A head-to-head battle of the pit crews after 30 of the 57 laps would have a major bearing on the race, giving McLaughlin another chance to jump in the pits. But near identical stops meant the pair came out in the same order they entered.
With 17 laps to go and after applying enormous pressure lap after lap McLaughlin made his move. Setting it up on the straight, McLaughlin snuck underneath a fading Whincup at turn two and into the lead.
New Zealand's Fabian Coulthard made up eight positions in the opening two laps having been sent to the back of the grid for a technical infringement with the rear wing which the team inadvertently set an incorrect angle on the rear wing of the Shell V-Power Falcon. He finished thirteenth.
Race two of the event starts from 3.50pm (NZ time) on Sunday.
