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McLaughlin forced to go ‘old school’ after shift problem

Scott McLaughlin says he had to go ‘old school’ at Winton today and use the clutch during upshifts, after his DJR Team Penske Ford suffered a shift-cut problem.

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford

Daniel Kalisz / Motorsport Images

Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Race winner Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford
Scott McLaughlin, Team Penske Ford

The Kiwi qualified on pole to the tune of 0.3s, but failed to convert that pace advantage into a fourth straight win.

Instead he wound up finishing down in fifth after battling a mechanical issue involving the shift-cut, which allows full-throttle upshifts by automatically cutting revs. 

“It happened when I came up behind [Jamie] Whincup and that’s when I sort of lost my pace,” said McLaughlin.

“I was clutching [on the upshifts] and everything. It was old school. It was a battle.

“It made me really appreciate how much easier it is when you do have a shift-cut and are able to just flat-change. I was trying a lot of different things to make it work and when the Safety Car came out I knew I’d be under fire.

“We just had to do our best and fifth was it.”

The Kiwi, who had closed to within 10 points on the points lead after a third win on the bounce yesterday, was more than generous when it came to door-to-door racing today, even using his indicator to ‘wave’ Red Bull Holden driver Shane van Gisbergen into second spot on Lap 26.

He said he made life easy for van Gisbergen in the hope that his fellow New Zealand might drag him onto the back of Whincup.

“There was no point fighting Shane because he was coming through hard,” added McLaughlin.

“I was catching Whincup when Shane was catching me, so I thought if I could let Shane go and he can chase Whincup and put pressure on him I might be able to catch up to him.

“Sometimes you’ve just got to pick your battles, and that was one I just decided to let go.

“I could have held him up but I felt I needed to salvage what I had and if that was an easy third or fourth, which it would have been before the Safety Car, then that was good.”

Today’s fifth place has dropped McLaughlin back to third in the points, 28 points behind teammate Fabian Coulthard.

Whincup splits the DJR Team Penske pair, his second place today moving him to within four points of the lead.

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