McLaughlin had to pass Craig Lowndes twice to secure the win. Having been bested by the Triple Eight driver off the line, McLaughlin made a lead-changing pass on Lowndes at Turn 3 on the third lap of the race.

He then found himself behind the #888 Commodore again on Lap 12 immediately after making his stop, having been undercut by Lowndes who stopped on Lap 4.

But the battle for the lead barely lasted a lap, McLaughlin blasting past Lowndes on the run into Turn 1 the next time around.

From there, McLaughlin was able to manage the gap back to Chaz Mostert and secure his sixth win of the season by 3.2s.

“It’s been a fantastic day for us,” said McLaughlin. “It was an awesome battle [with Lowndes], we had two great battles.

“It’s always great with Lowndesy, he’s a champion of the sport.”

Having run second in the opening stint of the race behind McLaughlin, Prodrive Racing’s Mostert emerged from his Lap 11 stop in third behind McLaughlin and Lowndes, before being undercut by Tim Slade a lap later.

By Lap 19 he was able to use his superior tyre quality to pass Lowndes for third, and then slotted into second on Lap 28 when Slade ran wide at Turn 6.

“I was a bit worried in that first stint with the tyre degradation, but our car held on pretty good in that second stint,” said Mostert.

“We needed this podium after the last couple of rounds, hopefully we can build on this.”

Shane van Gisbergen came home third after a thrilling last-lap battle with Slade.

The Kiwi went the opposite way to most on strategy, waiting until Lap 21 to make his stop and then coming home with the tyre advantage. He quickly charged his way from eight to fourth, passing the likes of Mark Winterbottom, Rick Kelly, and Lowndes along the way.

That put him within striking distance of Slade in third place, van Gisbergen closing up on the back of the #14 Commodore with a couple of laps to go.

On the final lap he got on the outside of Slade at Turn 3, before a late dive inside into Turn 4 to grab the final spot on the podium.

“This track isn’t exciting to drive, but the racing is always awesome,” said van Gisbergen.

“I was just watching [Tim] when I was catching him and I could see where he was weak, and that was into Turn 3, he kept losing the rear.

“I knew into Turn 4 would be the biggest shot, he covered, and I just went there anyway.”

Lowndes finished fifth, ahead of Fabian Coulthard, who recovered from a difficult qualifying session by using a similar strategy to van Gisbergen and making up a lot of ground after a Lap 22 stop.

Percat finished seventh, from Kelly, Winterbottom, and David Reynolds.

For Jamie Whincup, it was a case of a the day going from bad to worse. Having been slugged with a five-spot grid penalty before the race for a qualifying infringement, any chance of a comeback from 14th on the grid was killed off by a dodgy air spike coupling that led to a very long stop.

The Townsville race winner then struggled to make ground once he got going again, coming home 20th and losing a lot of ground to McLaughlin in terms of championship points.

“One to forget today,” said Whincup. “Poor quali, then the grid penalty, and something happened on the pitstop, the spike didn’t go in. That was pretty much the end of our day.

“I didn’t have a huge amount of pace to come back through, because we stopped so early. What could go wrong did go wrong today.”

McLaughlin now leads the championship by 111 points from Whincup.

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Laps	Time
1	17	Scott McLaughlin	Ford Falcon FG-X	39
2	55	Chaz Mostert	Ford Falcon FG-X	39	3.2470
3	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore VF	39	4.7006
4	14	Tim Slade	Holden Commodore VF	39	5.1589
5	888	Craig Lowndes	Holden Commodore VF	39	9.0852
6	12	Fabian Coulthard	Ford Falcon FG-X	39	9.5797
7	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore VF	39	14.4562
8	15	Rick Kelly	Nissan Altima	39	17.2439
9	5	Mark Winterbottom	Ford Falcon FG-X	39	17.4372
10	9	David Reynolds	Holden Commodore VF	39	20.6650
11	33	Garth Tander	Holden Commodore VF	39	21.2536
12	18	Lee Holdsworth	Holden Commodore VF	39	21.7482
13	2	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore VF	39	23.0767
14	22	James Courtney	Holden Commodore VF	39	24.7500
15	23	Michael Caruso	Nissan Altima	39	26.6375
16	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Falcon FG-X	39	27.5144
17	19	Will Davison	Holden Commodore VF	39	32.0938
18	7	Todd Kelly	Nissan Altima	39	33.1717
19	28	Jack Le Brocq	Nissan Altima	39	39.1977
20	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore VF	39	39.5465
21	21	Tim Blanchard	Holden Commodore VF	39	40.1064
22	36	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore VF	39	41.7360
23	99	Dale Wood	Holden Commodore VF	39	42.9318
24	31	James Golding	Holden Commodore VF	39	44.1119
25	26	Shae Davies	Nissan Altima	39	45.4063
26	3	Alex Davison	Holden Commodore VF	39	48.5001
27	78	Simona de Silvestro	Nissan Altima	37	2 laps
28	34	James Moffat	Holden Commodore VF	31	8 laps
	56	Jason Bright	Ford Falcon FG-X	33
	62	Alex Rullo	Holden Commodore VF	0