Adelaide Supercars: Scott McLaughlin wins on Ford Mustang's debut
Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin braved searing temperatures to score a historic debut win for the Ford Mustang on the streets of Adelaide
It was effectively a lights-to-flag win for the DJR Team Penske driver, who finished up with a 12.9 seconds advantage over Triple Eight Holden pair Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen.
The win was the first for a Mustang in the Australian Touring Car Championship in 46 years, the last coming at the hands of Allan Moffat.
McLaughlin sprung into the lead at the start from the second row, his cause helped greatly by team-mate and polesitter Fabian Coulthard jumping the start and then baulking immediately.
Coulthard held on to second, but was swiftly slapped with a 10-second penalty for his premature launch. That soon dumped him to 21st.
The Red Bull Holdens slotted into third and fourth, Shane van Gisbergen jumping Jamie Whincup through Turn 3 at the start. They switched back at the end of lap five though, Whincup easing past the Kiwi at the final corner.
McLaughlin steadily built his lead across the first stint, pulling 5s on Whincup and 8s on van Gisbergen. He extended that advantage further by running longer than the two Holdens during both pitstop sequences.
The champion emerged with a 14s advantage after his final stop, only dropping a second of that lead over the final stint as he cruised to a comfortable win to kick off his title defence.
The Triple Eight pair came home second and third, Whincup a second clear of van Gisbergen - who had come under heavy pressure from the leading Ford of Tickford's Chaz Mostert mid-race.
Mostert tried to take third with an ambitious lunge at Turn 9, but all he did was run wide and end up dropping momentarily behind team-mate Will Davison.
The van Gisbergen/Mostert battle resumed after the second stops, before Mostert made another mistake - this time locking up on the way into Turn 4 and losing the best part of 10 seconds.
That meant it was Will Davison that came home as the next-best Mustang and the top Tickford Ford.
He was only a second behind van Gisbergen by the finish, with Mostert 2.5s back in fifth.
Coulthard came home sixth despite his 10s penalty, ahead of a gaggle of Holdens lead by Nick Percat and and including Dave Reynolds, Mark Winterbottom, and James Courtney.
Cam Waters ran in the top six from the start but had to get out of the car at his first pitstop for his cool suit to be fixed because it had frozen early in the race. With the ambient temperature over 40 degrees celsius, he had to get out of the car for it to be fixed under the category's duty of care regulations.
He wasn't happy about it either, telling the broadcast crew that he was fine to continue. Instead he had to wait until he was 14 laps down, and the plumbing around the suit was repaired, before he could get back on track.
The reprofiled Turn 7 claimed its first in-race victims a third of the way in, in an incident started by Lee Holdsworth - who earlier in the weekend had predicted chaos at that exact part of the track - firing into the wall.
As his Tickford Mustang bounced back out Scott Pye was left with nowhere to go. Both got going again, but repairs meant Holdsworth lost six laps, while Pye never reappeared once in the garage.
Race one result
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Scott McLaughlin | DJR Penske | Ford | 78 | 1h48m02.4643s |
2 | Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight | Holden | 78 | 12.9651s |
3 | Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight | Holden | 78 | 13.9535s |
4 | Will Davison | 23Red Racing | Ford | 78 | 14.9425s |
5 | Chaz Mostert | Tickford | Ford | 78 | 17.5714s |
6 | Fabian Coulthard | DJR Penske | Ford | 78 | 22.2900s |
7 | Nick Percat | Brad Jones | Holden | 78 | 33.2790s |
8 | David Reynolds | Erebus | Holden | 78 | 33.7719s |
9 | Mark Winterbottom | Schwerkolt | Holden | 78 | 49.3664s |
10 | James Courtney | Walkinshaw | Holden | 78 | 55.9699s |
11 | Rick Kelly | Kelly | Nissan | 78 | 1m03.3401s |
12 | Todd Hazelwood | Matt Stone | Holden | 78 | 1m04.3075s |
13 | Andre Heimgartner | Kelly | Nissan | 78 | 1m05.8463s |
14 | James Golding | GRM | Holden | 78 | 1m08.6808s |
15 | Simona de Silvestro | Kelly | Nissan | 78 | 1m10.5825s |
16 | Anton De Pasquale | Erebus | Holden | 78 | 1m20.1106s |
17 | Tim Slade | Brad Jones | Holden | 77 | 1 Lap |
18 | Richie Stanaway | GRM | Holden | 77 | 1 Lap |
19 | Garry Jacobson | Kelly | Nissan | 77 | 1 Lap |
20 | Jack Le Brocq | Tekno | Holden | 77 | 1 Lap |
21 | Lee Holdsworth | Tickford | Ford | 72 | 6 Laps |
22 | Cameron Waters | Tickford | Ford | 64 | 14 Laps |
- | Scott Pye | Walkinshaw | Holden | 25 | Retirement |
- | Macauley Jones | Blanchard/BJR | Holden | 0 | Not started |
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