Van Gisbergen pips Mostert after late-race contact

SHANE van Gisbergen has hit back for Triple Eight Race Engineering in Newcastle, clinching a Sunday thriller.

Having this morning been stripped of his Saturday victory for a technical breach, which is being appealed, van Gisbergen delivered a come-from behind win just before time certainty struck.

Coincidentally, van Gisbergen sealed victory with a late pass on Chaz Mostert of Walkinshaw Andretti United, which was one of two teams to lodge a protest against Triple Eight on Satutday night.

Mostert drove a stellar race to give WAU hope of its first Ford win but had a charging van Gisbergen to deal with in the final stint.

The #97 Red Bull Ampol driver got the job done on the fifth-last lap at Turn 9 albeit with the help of some minor front-to-rear contact.

Mostert returned serve two corners later but could not snatch back the lead, van Gisbergen going on to win by 4.4992s.

“All I have to say is thankyou to Red Bull Ampol Racing team,” said the Kiwi.

“Yesterday was tough and obviously we’ll fight it, but the team knuckled down and did a good job.

“Thanks to everyone for coming out again. Newcastle, it’s great to be here. The rest of it, I did all my talking on track.”

Mostert indicated some level of displeasure about the race-winning overtake.

“Overall pretty happy to get two podiums out of the weekend,” he said.

“We worked pretty hard on the car, we still lack a little bit of race pace and trying to look after the tyres. That’s something we’ll go to the drawing board.

“The contact, it was a little bit cheeky. I don’t mind rubbing’s racing but when you get a clear pass from it, it’s a bit cheeky.”

A move to bring the race start forward by 15 minutes was somewhat negated by an early red flag owing to a startline incident.

Tickford rookie Declan Fraser was out of action before even making it to the start/finish line, contact with Macauley Jones sending him into the pit straight wall.

After the field had followed the Safety Car once through the pits, the race was halted on Lap 2 to allow for repairs to the pit wall.

Chaz Mostert had already moved into the lead by that point, blitzing the start to round up polesitter David Reynolds.

Behind it was Cam Waters, James Golding, Shane van Gisbergen, Tim Slade, Jack Le Brocq, Andre Heimgartner, Broc Feeney and Todd Hazelwood in 10th.

The race resumed on Lap 5, after two tours behind the Safety Car, and van Gisbergen immediately set about resuming his Saturday tactics, backing up the pack to give him clear air ahead.

Indeed, van Gisbergen almost instantly was 2s behind Golding, with the front of the field spreading while sixth backwards were in the SVG train.

That seemed to pay dividends, helping the three-time champion to delay his first pitstop until Lap 38 – 15 after Mostert.

Anton De Pasquale was the first to dive into the pits on Lap 10 but any hopes of an undercut strategy were ruined by Nick Percat following suit the next lap and emerging just ahead.

Broc Feeney was the first of the frontrunners to duck into the pits and unlike De Pasquale, he was able to put fresh boots to good use to vault up the order.

With time certainty looking likely to cut the race short by about six laps, a range of diverging strategies came to the fore.

That in turn created a far more entertaining encounter than yesterday, with plenty of overtakes.

At the front, van Gisbergen was clearly a threat but more immediate in Mostert’s mirrors was Waters on six-lap fresher tyres.

Waters was all over Mostert by Lap 46 but his race came unstuck the very next lap, clipping the inside wall at Turn 9 in his pursuit of his old sparring partner.

That necessitated an earlier than scheduled second stop for the Monster Energy driver, losing time as his crew attempting a bandaid fix on some bent steering.

That added to a tramautic day for Tickford, who in addition to Fraser had lost James Courtney’s Mustang to a Top 10 Shootout crash.

Mostert’s next service didn’t come until Lap 58, with Reynolds and van Gisbergen holding off for another 10 and 12 laps respectively.

A slow stop put Reynolds out behind Golding, while van Gisbergen re-emerged 8.5s behind Mostert.

The hunt began, closing to 3.3s behind by the time the 10-minute warning came for time certainty.

Reynolds meanwhile snuck by the stoic defence of Golding to get his #26 Penrite Mustang back onto the podium.

Literally racing the clock, van Gisbergen kept reeling Mostert in before making the decisive, albeit semi-controversial move at Turn 9 on Lap 85.

Reynolds, Golding and Feeney rounded out the five, while a clever strategy helped Brodie Kostecki to sixth.

Waters limped home in 12th while Dick Johnson Racing had another day to forget with Anton De Pasquale 16th and Will Davison 19^th.

Todd Hazelwood (Turn 9) and Cameron Hill (Turn 1) escaped scares in the second half of the race to avoid a return of the Safety Car.

Mostert now leads the championship over Kostecki and Waters after the Newcastle 500, pending Triple Eight’s appeal into its Saturday disqualification.

RESULTS: Race 2, Thrifty Newcastle 500