The Supercars championship is heading for another tense showdown on the streets of Newcastle on Sunday after the two series leaders fought out an extraordinary battle in Saturday’s first 250km race.
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Ford star and series leader Scott McLaughlin looked headed for victory but ran out of fuel on the penultimate bend, handing the race win to Holden’s Shane van Gisbergen.
McLaughlin limped across the line in second and will take a tiny two-point lead into the final day of the season.
Whoever finishes ahead on Sunday will be the series champion.
Van Gisbergen said after the race that Sunday’s finale was “winner takes all”.
“It was epic. I thought it was all over after the safety car came out. I knew it was too early.
“Obviously we had to come back in again. I tried to burn as much fuel as possible so we could fit it in.”
McLaughlin said he and van Gisbergen had been “like cockroaches to each other” given their closeness throughout the season.
“I was saving [fuel] the whole way. We were running the gauntlet there for a little bit. It just didn’t pay off.”
McLaughlin had qualified third and faced a wall of Holdens in front of him as he tried to protect his slender 14-point championship lead over van Gisbergen.
That’s the way the race played out early on, when 2017 series champion Jamie Whincup took the lead from second on the grid then passed it to pole-sitter and Red Bull teammate van Gisbergen.
But half of the wall soon crumbled when Whincup pitted then shunted a wall after an altercation with McLaughlin’s teammate, Fabian Coulthard, on lap 25.
McLaughlin and van Gisbergen pitted soon after, and the Holden driver emerged from the garage with cold tyres and his fellow Kiwi right on his hammer.
But he survived the challenge and slowly eased away from McLaughlin, who is chasing his first Supercars crown.
Coulthard’s afternoon finished on lap 42 when he slid into a barrier at turn one then was T-boned by Tim Blanchard.
Nick Percat also made contact with Coulthard and lost the driver’s side door and some panels from his Commodore.
Craig Lowndes rear-ended Scott Pye’s car in pit lane as the field took the opportunity to refuel, and the retiring Holden veteran lost five laps.
A frustrated Lowndes told the race broadcasters the “fast lane” in pit straight was “not wide enough” after trying – and failing – to squeeze past Pye’s Commodore.
The carnage did van Gisbergen no favours as he pitted twice in quick succession and found himself sixth on track and trailing the now second-placed McLaughlin by 4.5 seconds, but the extra fuel proved decisive at the death.
New leader Lee Holdsworth jumped a confusing restart, when both yellow and green flags were showing, and received a pit-lane time penalty, handing McLaughlin the lead.
Chaz Mostert became the latest to kiss the wall at the troublesome turn one, and van Gisbergen moved up to replace him in third.
Van Gisbergen moved into second and set about chasing his rival. McLaughlin tried to conserve fuel, but he ran out on the hairpin at Nobbys and could do nothing as the Aucklander sped past.
McLaughlin endured a nightmare ending to last year’s championship when he incurred three penalties in the final race in Newcastle and surrendered a 78-point lead to Whincup.
A large crowd turned out on Saturday for the second edition of Newcastle’s Supercars weekend.
The attendance was down on last year’s event but was far from meagre.
Spectators turned up later in the day than in 2017, and the numbers built steadily until the start of the main event.
Fans lined the circuit, two and three deep in some places at peak times, and businesses inside the track had plenty of customers.
Supercars does not issue daily crowd figures. It announced a bullish three-day total of 192,000 last year, though that number was boosted by tickets issued to people who may not have been there and people working at the race.
After a fractious build-up to last year’s race pitted some Newcastle East residents against motor racing fans, there were few visible signs of protest this year.
Many residents in terraces close to the track appeared to have left town.
In the support races, local hope Cam Mason missed a golden opportunity to win a Touring Car Masters race on home soil when his brakes failed entering turn two at the top of the Watt Street straight.
He was leading at the time but made gentle contact with a crash barrier then limped home in seventh.
Newcastle’s Aaren Russell was second in his SuperUtes debut, Charlotte Poynting was 12th of 13 in the same race, and Metford’s Hayden Jackson was 26th in the Toyota 86 race.
NSW Police took to Twitter at 5pm to praise the behaviour of fans, reporting that there had been no major incidents.
The action heads to No.1 Sportsground tonight, where Simple Minds and Birds of Tokyo will play to fans holding a Saturday race ticket.
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