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Andrew van Leeuwen

Supercars Sandown: Davison dominates opener from pole

The Dick Johnson Racing Ford driver set the tone for the race at the start of the triple-header meeting, a flawless getaway allowing him to sweep right to the racing line for the first left-hander.

Fellow front-row starter van Gisbergen meanwhile was slightly sluggish off the line and was forced to head to the inside to defend from the chasing pack.

Davison immediately settled into an eighth-tenth lead over his Kiwi rival, which steadily grew to more than a second as the first stint wore on.

On lap 17 van Gisbergen took his mandatory service, effectively forcing Davison to follow suit a lap later to limit the undercut.

The response proved to be the right one, Davison emerging well clear of van Gisbergen after taking his stop.

He then put in an impressive second stint to stretch the advantage to 8.4s by the chequered flag.

Having won his last two races after post-race penalties were applied to another competitor, this was the first time Davison crossed the finish line first to win a race since 2015.

"I crossed the finish line first, which is nice," he said. "It was a dream run. I'm privileged to have a race like that.

"I'm pushing hard, feeling good. I've been around for a while and when you have a race like that and a car like that... a huge shout-out to [engineer] Rich [Harris] and the whole Shell V-Power team."

Race winner Will Davison, Dick Johnson Racing (Photo by: Edge Photographics)

Van Gisbergen held onto second after staving off a brief challenge from Davison's early-stopping team-mate Anton De Pasquale.

A lap 12 stop for De Pasquale helped him jump Erebus Holden driver Will Brown, who had run third in the early stages.

Brown, who stopped on lap 17, came under significant pressure from the hard-charging Tickford Ford of Cam Waters later in the stint.

Waters, coming from 12th on the grid, had already barged his way past team-mates Thomas Randle and James Courtney but couldn't deny Brown.

Waters finished fourth ahead of Courtney and Team 18 Holden pair Scott Pye and Mark Winterbottom.

Randle came home ninth as Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden) completed the best 10.

The big mover of the race was David Reynolds, who used an early stop and an undercut to make up 12 positions to finish 12th in his Grove Racing Ford. But team-mate Lee Holdsworth, however, went the other way, finishing 24th after stalling on his way out of the pit box.

Despite finishing second van Gisbergen was able to extend his series lead over De Pasquale to 401 points.

Supercars Sandown - Race 1 result (36 laps)

Cla # Driver Car Gap Interval
1 17 Australia Will Davison Ford Mustang GT    
2 97 New Zealand Shane van Gisbergen Holden Commodore ZB 8.4921 8.4921
3 11 Australia Anton De Pasquale Ford Mustang GT 9.0175 0.5254
4 9 Australia Will Brown Holden Commodore ZB 15.3172 6.2997
5 6 Australia Cameron Waters Ford Mustang GT 15.5330 0.2158
6 5 Australia James Courtney Ford Mustang GT 15.7716 0.2386
7 20 Australia Scott Pye Holden Commodore ZB 16.2331 0.4615
8 18 Australia Mark Winterbottom Holden Commodore ZB 16.6513 0.4182
9 55 Australia Thomas Randle Ford Mustang GT 17.6355 0.9842
10 25 Australia Chaz Mostert Holden Commodore ZB 18.2569 0.6214
11 99 Brodie Kostecki Holden Commodore ZB 19.6029 1.3460
12 26 Australia David Reynolds Ford Mustang GT 27.9923 8.3894
13 31 Australia James Golding Holden Commodore ZB 29.8536 1.8613
14 88 Broc Feeney Holden Commodore ZB 36.4876 6.6340
15 2 Australia Nick Percat Holden Commodore ZB 36.8005 0.3129
16 14 Australia Bryce Fullwood Holden Commodore ZB 37.9328 1.1323
17 96 Australia Macauley Jones Holden Commodore ZB 38.1870 0.2542
18 3 Australia Tim Slade Ford Mustang GT 39.9570 1.7700
19 34 Australia Jack Le Brocq Holden Commodore ZB 40.9573 1.0003
20 4 Australia Jack Smith Holden Commodore ZB 43.6744 2.7171
21 35 Australia Todd Hazelwood Holden Commodore ZB 44.8622 1.1878
22 56 Australia Jake Kostecki Ford Mustang GT 45.4094 0.5472
23 8 New Zealand Andre Heimgartner Holden Commodore ZB 47.4382 2.0288
24 10 Australia Lee Holdsworth Ford Mustang GT 53.3721 5.9339
25 22 New Zealand Chris Pither Holden Commodore ZB 1 Lap 1 Lap
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