Gold Coast 600 Recap

After prolonged wet weather on the Gold Coast, teams were relieved to see a clear day dawn for Friday’s opening sessions of the Gold Coast 600. Practice 1 was spent by the Shell V-Power Racing Team tuning for balance, in their first outing on the Surfers street circuit for 2018. All four drivers took part in the session, as they found their feet on the challenging track. The 30-minute Practice 2 was for co-drivers only, with Tony D’Alberto onboard Car No.12 and Alex Premat in Car No.17. Both cars spent time working on both qualifying balance and race pace, with D’Alberto losing a few lap times due to kerb strikes.

The final practice session of the weekend was stopped after seven minutes when Will Davison crashed heavily at Turn 1, causing a red flag. The car was recovered, and the session restarted with no loss of time. McLaughlin traded fastest laps with Van Gisbergen across the remainder of the session, eventually finishing 2nd in the session. Coulthard finished 3rd, showing some good signs for the team.

McLaughlin also took to the street circuit for a demonstration in a Team Penske Ford Fusion NASCAR, previously raced by Joey Logano.

The first session for Supercars on Saturday was qualifying, where the objective for the session was for both cars to progress to the Top 10 Shootout, which was achieved with McLaughlin crossing the line fourth and Coulthard sixth.

In the shootout Scott McLaughlin took his 12th pole of 2018 in the shootout, securing the overall Armor All pole award for the second year running. A solid lap from Fabian Coulthard secured himself and Tony D’Alberto a fourth-place start.

Race 26 would prove to be a challenging one for Shell V-Power Racing Team, with on-track incidents and a lack of safety car periods late in the race forcing the team into a tough fuel strategy. The co-drivers started the race, with Alex Premat in Car 17 off pole, and Tony D’Alberto in Car 12 off p4. Contact between Alex and second placed Paul Dumbrell in Car 1 Holden pushed Car 17 into the wall, dropping Premat from the lead of the race into fifth on lap two. This elevated D’Alberto into second. A lap 22 Safety Car for a crash between Car 99 and Car 56 saw the majority of cars dive into the pit lane. D’Alberto entered first, with the team electing to short-fill Car 12 in order to avoid stacking Car 17. This saw D’Alberto re-join in first place under Safety Car, however needing to max conserve fuel to make it to the second pit stop. Premat slotted back into fifth. Both Red Bull cars were given drive-through penalties for unsafe releases at their first pit stops, which then pushed Premat into fourth.

D’Alberto did an incredible job on the fuel save to get Car 12 to pit lane on lap 56, from second position. Coulthard then climbed onboard, and was fuel saving for the final 46 laps to the flag. Premat continued on until lap 61, with McLaughlin then taking the wheel for the run to the flag. This put McLaughlin in fifth, and Coulthard 10th.

With Coulthard being forced to fuel save throughout his entire final stint, and no caution periods coming, he dropped back to 11th at the flag. McLaughlin finished the race fifth, reclaiming the lead of the Championship with a 14-point buffer to Van Gisbergen.

Coulthard also took to the circuit on Saturday in the Team Penske Shell Pennzoil No.22 NASCAR for a demonstration.

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS