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Andrew van Leeuwen

Supercars Gold Coast: Van Gisbergen wins crash-affected race

The race got off to a controversial start, Will Davison drawing level with van Gisbergen on the run to the first corner before the pair tried to get through the chicane side-by-side.

As the car on the outside of Turn 1 Davison then opted to straightline the chicane which helped him take a lead.

Race control briefly assessed whether a redress was required before decided on no further action.

Davison was able to swiftly establish a small lead, however his early advantage was erased on the fourth lap when the race was red-flagged.

The stoppage was thanks to a wild pile-up on the exit of the beach chicane triggered when James Golding collected a tyre bundle.

The crash took Golding, Todd Hazelwood, Broc Feeney, Lee Holdsworth, Nick Percat and Macauley Jones out of the race, while James Courtney and Thomas Randle would get back on track, but many laps down. Thankfully there were no serious injuries.

Following a lengthy clean-up the heavily reduced field got going behind the safety car before the race went green on lap 9.

This time Davison wasn't able to get a break on van Gisbergen, the Kiwi peppering the back of the Shell Ford for the first two laps.

He then dived under Davison at Turn 11 to grab the lead before putting more than two seconds on the field over the next five laps.

By the time Davison made his first stop on lap 25 the gap has blown out to 5.5s, Davison emerging from that service behind a short-filling Chaz Mostert, who had pitted from third three laps earlier.

When van Gisbergen pitted on lap 28 he too found himself behind Mostert, who used that first short stop to jump into the effective lead.

Van Gisbergen was able to comfortably eat into what was initially a 3s lead as the second stint wore on, the gap under a second by the mid-way point of the race.

By lap 45 van Gisbergen was right under Mostert's rear wing, Mostert responding by diving into the pits for his second stop.

Davison did likewise three laps later, by which point he was the best part of 5s adrift of van Gisbergen.

The Shell Ford resumed around 1.5s behind Mostert, while van Gisbergen waited until lap 51 to take his second stop.

Podium: Race winner Shane van Gisbergen, Triple Eight Race Engineering, second place Chaz Mostert, Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden, third place Will Davison, Dick Johnson Racing Ford (Photo by: Edge Photographics)

As expected he resumed well clear of Mostert, van Gisbergen's effective lead a healthy 3.3s as he started his third stint. With 15 laps to go the gap was out over 6s only for Randle to stop on track and trigger a safety car.

But while the caution put Mostert and Davison on van Gisbergen's bumper, the champion-elect was easily able to pull a gap once the race went green again with 11 laps to go. In typical van Gisbergen fashion he then controlled the run to the flag, coming home 2.1s ahead of Mostert and Davison.

The win extended his record season wins tally to 21 as well as sealing the teams' championship for Triple Eight.

David Reynolds finished fourth while Brodie Kostecki pulled off a forceful move on Cam Waters at the hairpin with four laps to go to grab fifth.

Waters then got shuffled back to sixth by Mark Winterbottom amid a clumsy clash started by Will Brown at Turn 11.

Brown got into the back of Scott Pye who then clipped Waters, the latter able to continue while the former was left nosed into the barriers.

Pye did get going again and finished 13th on the road, however he was already carrying a 15-second penalty for a restart infringement and was dumped further down the order.

Brown copped a 15-second penalty of his own for his role in the clash which dropped him from eighth on the road to 12th.

That promoted Andre Heimgartner to eighth ahead of Chris Pither and Anton De Pasquale, but the DJR driver was then disqualified post-race for being under the minimum tyre pressures.

The non-score drops de Pasquale behind Davison to fifth in the standings, with just the final two races in Adelaide to run on the 3-4 December before the end of the season.

2022 Gold Coast 500 Race 2 results

Cla # Driver Car Time Gap Interval
1 97 New Zealand Shane van Gisbergen Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'20.3212    
2 25 Australia Chaz Mostert Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'22.4308 2.1096 2.1096
3 17 Australia Will Davison Ford Mustang GT 2:19'23.8233 3.5021 1.3925
4 26 Australia David Reynolds Ford Mustang GT 2:19'25.6939 5.3727 1.8706
5 99 Brodie Kostecki Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'28.6219 8.3007 2.9280
6 18 Australia Mark Winterbottom Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'30.7335 10.4123 2.1116
7 6 Australia Cameron Waters Ford Mustang GT 2:19'32.5596 12.2384 1.8261
8 8 New Zealand Andre Heimgartner Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'33.6635 13.3423 1.1039
9 22 New Zealand Chris Pither Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'34.4837 14.1625 0.8202
10 11 Australia Anton De Pasquale Ford Mustang GT 2:19'35.0161 14.6949 0.5324
11 3 Australia Tim Slade Ford Mustang GT 2:19'35.6100 15.2888 0.5939
12 9 Australia Will Brown Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'48.1316 27.8104 12.5216
13 20 Australia Scott Pye Holden Commodore ZB 2:20'06.6348 46.3136 18.5032
14 14 Australia Bryce Fullwood Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'36.8953 1 Lap 1 Lap
15 4 Australia Jack Smith Holden Commodore ZB 2:19'47.4734 1 Lap 10.5781
16 56 Australia Jake Kostecki Ford Mustang GT 2:19'50.4930 17 Laps 16 Laps
17 34 Australia Jack Le Brocq Holden Commodore ZB 2:20'11.1177 19 Laps 2 Laps
18 5 Australia James Courtney Ford Mustang GT 2:19'40.0900 21 Laps 2 Laps
  55 Australia Thomas Randle Ford Mustang GT 2:03'47.3379 35 Laps 14 Laps
  31 Australia James Golding Holden Commodore ZB 3'47.7454 82 Laps 47 Laps
  88 Broc Feeney Holden Commodore ZB 3'49.1029 82 Laps 1.3575
  10 Australia Lee Holdsworth Ford Mustang GT 3'50.0737 82 Laps 0.9708
  35 Australia Todd Hazelwood Holden Commodore ZB 3'50.5986 82 Laps 0.5249
  2 Australia Nick Percat Holden Commodore ZB 3'51.3742 82 Laps 0.7756
  96 Australia Macauley Jones Holden Commodore ZB 3'51.8300 82 Laps 0.4558

 

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