Photo Credit: Supercars
Supercars is back and so is Scott McLaughlin’s winning ways – after the kiwi claimed victory in today’s historic race at the BP Sydney SuperSprint.
On the Ford Mustang’s debut at Sydney Motorsport Park, McLaughlin held off fellow kiwi Shane van Gisbergen to claim his second win of 2020 and 45th of his career.
Van Gisbergen’s Red Bull Holden teammate Jamie Whincup was third.
McLaughlin, who started from pole, and van Gisbergen went with completely different strategies with new pit stop rules, and in the end it came down to the final corner, with McLaughlin holding on to win by less than 0.2 of a second.
It was the closest finish in Sydney since 1996.
The result means two-time defending Supercars Champion McLaughlin has extended his Championship lead over Whincup to 41 points heading into tomorrow’s two 130km races.
Behind the top three today was Chaz Mostert who continues to impress in his early days as a Holden driver. Nick Percat was 5th ahead of Cam Waters, Lee Holdsworth, Anton De Pasquale, Mark Winterbottom and Fabian Coulthard who rounded out the top ten.
James Courtney, in his 200th career event and return to Ford, had one of the drives of the day – starting 21st and finishing 12th in his Mustang debut.
Tomorrow could be a very different story for teams, with new tyre regulations meaning results may vary across the two ARMOR ALL Qualifying sessions and two 130km races. Teams will only have a limited amount of tyres to use after today’s sessions.
It will be a memorable day for Whincup, who will start his 500th career race, becoming just the eight driver in history to reach that mark.
TODAY’S RESULTS
- Scott McLaughlin
- Shane van Gisbergen
- Jamie Whincup
- Chaz Mostert
- Nick Percat
- Cam Waters
- Lee Holdsworth
- Anton De Pasquale
- Mark Winterbottom
- Fabian Coulthard
- Todd Hazelwood
- James Courtney
- Bryce Fullwood
- Rick Kelly
- Andre Heimgartner
- Garry Jacobson
- Scott Pye
- Macauley Jones
- Jack Le Brocq
- Chris Pither
- David Reynolds
- Jake Kostecki
- Jack Smith
- Alex Davison
