Sydney Supercars: Van Gisbergen three-stops to victory

The roll of the strategic dice worked well for van Gisbergen, who easily ran down race-long rivals Anton De Pasquale and Will Brown during his short final stint.

That sealed a perfect start to his title defence, the Kiwi joined on the podium by De Pasquale and a fast-finishing Chaz Mostert. 

Andre Heimgartner was the only driver in the lead group to start on the super soft compound, however a poor start meant he went backwards, from fourth to sixth, before going forwards.

Once he was going forwards Heimgartner made rapid progress, working his way into second by Lap 4 before catching and passing early leader De Pasquale on Lap 8. 

It was third-placed van Gisbergen who was first of the lead group to pit, taking on another set of softs on Lap 20. 

Heimgartner and De Pasquale, at that point split by around four seconds, followed suit on Lap 24, Heimgartner switching to the soft as De Pasquale took on the super soft.

As the stops shook out van Gisbergen took over the lead ahead of a super softs-shod Will Brown. 

Heimgartner and De Pasquale resumed in fifth and sixth respectively, although De Pasquale, with his super soft tyres, wasted little time clearing the Kiwi and then David Reynolds to move into third.

He then closed up onto the back of Brown, but couldn't find a way through into second place until Lap 42. 

By that stage van Gisbergen was 12 seconds down the road, however the Kiwi opted to pit on that same lap to take on super softs, which committed him to a three-stopper.

Brown followed suit two laps later, while De Pasquale stayed out on his super softs as the race leader until Lap 52.

The lead then went back to van Gisbergen who bolted as he looked to build a big enough lead to take his extra stop and still be in the hunt. 

The Kiwi made that final stop on Lap 63 with around 40 seconds up his sleeve over Brown and De Pasquale.

He resumed around 10 seconds behind leader Brown, but with significantly better rubber for the 14-lap run home.

Helping van Gisbergen's cause was Brown and De Pasquale squabbling over the lead. De Pasquale managed to break down Brown's defence 10 laps from the end, however by that point van Gisbergen was already on their bumpers. 

By the end of that very same lap he was through both Brown and De Pasquale and on his way to a 19.5 second win.

The victory also marked Jamie Whincup's first as Triple Eight team principal and first for van Gisbergen with his new engineer Andrew Edwards. 

"It's a team win. I had no idea what was happening in the middle of the race," said van Gisbergen. 

"We're lucky the weather held out. We've had some big [staff] changes, but the team feels the same. It's a great way to start."

De Pasquale finished second while Brown, hurting in terms of tyre quality, dropped like a stone in the closing laps.

He was passed by Mostert, Will Davison, Brodie Kostecki and Nick Percat as he slumped to seventh ahead of Slade and full-time debutant Broc Feeney. 

Heimgartner was running sixth until the very end of the race, but seemed to run out of fuel on the final lap, which dropped him to 15th. 

Scott Pye, meanwhile, endured a terrible start to his new season, the power steering failing on his Team 18 Holden after contact with James Courtney inside the first 10 laps of the race.

He limped back to the pits for lengthy repairs, making a brief appearance late in the race before retiring. 

Reynolds was hit by a mechanical problem too, an issue with his gearbox costing him 12 laps in the pits.

The Sydney SuperNight continues with a second 300-kilometre race tomorrow.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Gap
1	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB
2	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	19.558
3	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	31.053
4	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	37.500
5	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	38.806
6	2	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	39.393
7	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	41.113
8	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	50.790
9	88	Broc Feeney	Holden Commodore ZB	52.477
10	5	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	54.523
11	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	1'03.149
12	14	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'15.071
13	34	Jack Le Brocq	Holden Commodore ZB	1'21.630
14	35	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	1'21.811
15	8	Andre Heimgartner	Holden Commodore ZB	1'27.045
16	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB
17	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB
18	76	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB
19	56	Jake Kostecki	Ford Mustang GT
20	55	Thomas Randle	Ford Mustang GT
21	10	Lee Holdsworth	Ford Mustang GT
22	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB
23	22	Chris Pither	Holden Commodore ZB
24	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT
	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB
View full results