THE Merlin Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley saw Shane van Gisbergen extend his lead in the Repco Supercars Championship thanks to two wins in the races on Sunday.
There were plenty of numbers and notes generated on the weekend, here’s just a snapshot …
* van Gisbergen scored his 47th and 48th Supercars Championship race wins, moving him into a tie with Peter Brock for sixth on the all-time ATCC/RSC race wins list. The Kiwi has taken 432 races to reach 48 wins, Brock took 291.
* van Gisbergen hadn’t won in Darwin since 2016. But if you looked at the numbers you would have seen he wins at Hidden Valley every five years, so he was due! The Kiwi won in 2011 with Stone Brothers, in 2016 with Triple Eight and then again this year, 2021.
* Chaz Mostert scored the most points across the weekend, marking the first time a non-Triple Eight or DJR Team Penske has ‘won the round’ since David Reynolds at Newcastle in 2018. The last time a Walkinshaw car did this was 2016 Sandown (Garth Tander/Warren Luff), though the last time the team did it in a multi-race round was Adelaide 2015 with James Courtney.
* Triple Eight have now won 16 races in Darwin, one more than WAU (formerly HRT). Mostert’s Saturday win broke the 14-14 deadlock between the two teams for Hidden Valley wins, though van Gisbergen’s Sunday victories swung the record back in favour of his Brisbane-based team.
* Will Davison grabbed his first pole since 2014 Sydney Olympic Park and backed it straight up in the next session on Sunday. The last time he scored back-to-back poles was Abu Dhabi in 2012. His first pole on Sunday meant that 195 ARMOR ALL Pole Positions had been awarded since his last one driving the Erebus Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG.
