Townsville Supercars: Van Gisbergen wins all-Triple Eight thriller

The two Red Bull Holden drivers were locked in battle for the majority of the race, van Gisbergen shadowing his teammate across the first stint.

At the stops the battle kicked up a gear when Whincup took on three new tyres, while van Gisbergen went for a faster two-tyre stop to give him track position.

Initially he had around four seconds up his sleeve, however the gap quickly shrunk thanks to Whincup's superior tyre grip.

On Lap 21 Whincup started his play to reclaim the lead, van Gisbergen forced to defend into the final corner. It was the same for the next few laps, Whincup finally getting alongside the #97 on Lap 25.

But van Gisbergen's defence was up to the task, the Kiwi holding the inside line down to Turn 2 to keep Whincup at bay.

That took the sting out of Whincup's attack, the seven-time series champion then dropping back with his tyre advantage gone.

Van Gisbergen's final winning margin was 4.5s.

"It was awesome," said van Gisbergen. "We chose to take two tyres to try and get in front and all I had to do was keep him behind for three or four laps until he toasted his fresh one. It was a pretty cool battle, pretty tense. I'm sure there were some tight moments in the garage, but it was good fun."

Whincup added: "I guess the whole pitlane wants us to have a blue, but it's not going to happen. Great team points for both cars.

"I wouldn't be surprised if something in my car is bent, I really struggled to brake probably about four laps from the stop. And I had quite a bad vibration.

"I did what I could at the start to try and gap away from everyone to minimise the stacking risk for both cars to give us both an advantage before the stop. But I probably burnt myself out trying to play the team game."

It was a dominant showing from Triple Eight, with Chaz Mostert the best of the rest in third, 8s behind the winner. He spent the back end of the race under serious fire from Will Davison, the pair crossing the line nose-to-tail.

Todd Hazelwood was an impressive fifth ahead of Scott Pye, Brodie Kostecki, Anton De Pasquale and David Reynolds.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Interval
1	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	-
2	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	4.547	4.547	4.547
3	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	8.125	8.125	3.578
4	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	8.507	8.508	0.382
5	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	17.445	17.445	8.938
6	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	19.243	19.244	1.798
7	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	24.099	24.099	4.855
8	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	28.081	28.081	3.982
9	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	29.006	29.007	0.925
10	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB	32.524	32.524	3.518
11	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	37.723	37.723	5.199
12	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	38.734	38.734	1.011
13	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	43.282	43.283	4.549
14	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB	43.365	43.365	0.082
15	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	48.556	48.557	5.192
16	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	51.951	51.952	3.395
17	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	56.807	56.808	4.856
18	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	58.807	58.808	2.000
19	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	59.043	59.044	0.236
20	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	1'00.495	1'00.496	1.452
21	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB	1 lap
22	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	6 laps
23	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB
24	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB
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