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Australia

Phillip Island Supercars: Coulthard leads Penske clean-sweep

Fabian Coulthard beat Scott McLaughlin as DJR Team Penske completed a Phillip Island clean-sweep on Sunday, while Anton De Pasquale took a breakthrough podium finish.

Podium: race winner Fabian Coulthard, DJR Team Penske

Podium: race winner Fabian Coulthard, DJR Team Penske

Edge Photographics

A slow first stop for McLaughlin proved to be the difference between the two Penske Mustangs, Coulthard taking over the lead for the second stint and never letting it go.

The win is Coulthard's first since the Sunday race at Winton last May, and restores the 124-point gap between the two Penske drivers in the standings.

The Shell Fords were untroubled off the line, McLaughlin quickly bolting to a 1.5s lead over Coulthard.

Thanks to new pitlane closure rules that are on trial this weekend, the first stint was over in the blink of an eye. McLaughlin pitted from the lead on Lap 5, the rest of the frontrunners coming on over the next four laps.

The stops shook the order up, with Tickford Ford drivers Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters ending up first and second on corrected order thanks to short fuelling. Mostert didn't even bother taking on new rubber during his Lap 7 stop, sticking with the same tyres he started the race with.

McLaughlin dropped all the way back to fifth in the effective order, with De Pasquale and Coulthard also jumping the reigning champion. That the two Penske cars were reversed was somewhat unexpected, given that Coulthard took on slightly more fuel than McLaughlin.

By the 15-lap mark, with Mostert 3s down the road, the battle for second was well and truly on between Waters, De Pasquale, and the two Penske Mustangs.

McLaughlin, still running fifth, took himself out of the battle by making his second stop on Lap 16.

Mostert and Waters both came in a lap later, followed by De Pasquale on Lap 18 and Coulthard on Lap 19.

Long stops for the Tickford drivers dropped them to back of that lead pack, both of them ending up behind teammate Will Davison.

Coulthard, meanwhile, came out in the effective lead. De Pasquale got out ahead of McLaughlin, but a mistake midway through Southern Loop on Lap 21 was all it took for McLaughlin to restore the Penske one-two.

At the midway point of the race there was little between the two Shell Mustangs, Coulthard's lead less than a second.

Nothing much changed at the front over the long final stint, the gap consistently hanging around the 1s mark before closing down to six tenths at the finish.

"I was a little bit shocked," said Coulthard when asked if he expected to jump McLaughin in the first round of stops.

“I’m not sure what happened to Scott on one of his out-laps, because I was expecting a red car to go blowing past.

“But thankfully we had great pitstops, we had a fast car, it looked after its tyres, it ticked all the boxes.”

McLaughlin added: “I’m really happy with my weekend, it’s been a big week for [the team], two weeks on the road and to come away with three one-twos is massive,” he said.

“We’ll have a little think about it in the debrief, talk about a few things, but the idea is for the team to win and we’ve done that on multiple occasions in this past couple of weeks.”

Despite a sensor issue causing some fuel consumption concerns, De Pasquale was a comfortable third, 4s behind Coulthard and 1.7s in front of Davison.

It's the second-year driver's first podium finish, coming a week after a bizarre bolt blunder cost him a career-best result in Tasmania.

“I had about 10 to go and [Davison] wasn’t going to catch me, but then they said save fuel and obviously that’s very stressful when you’re fighting for your first podium," said De Pasquale.

“You’ve got to save fuel and try and go fast, but in the end it all worked out and I think we’ll have a great night tonight.”

Davison led a Tickford trio in positions four to six, Mostert ahead of Waters, while Shane van Gisbergen came home best of the Triple Eight Holdens in seventh.

Rick Kelly won out in a fierce battle for eighth, which included a hard-charging effort from Tim Slade, who rolled the dice on a long middle stint and had the best tyre life in the closing stages.

The BJR driver couldn't quite nab that eighth place, though, settling for ninth after being made to work hard to pass first David Reynolds, and then teammate Nick Percat.

Jamie Whincup had a very quiet race, finishing up 12th behind Reynolds.

James Courtney had a shocker of a race, started by clumsy contact with Todd Hazelwood on Lap 1 as the pair battled over seventh place. That earned the 2010 champ a 15s penalty, insult then added to that injury with a high-speed off at Turn 1 on Lap 13 thanks to a front-right puncture.

There was then a second right-front puncture 10 laps from home, Courtney finishing up last, two laps behind the winner.

Hazelwood recovered to 16th after his involuntarily trip through the gravel thanks to that first-lap Courtney contact.

Cla # Driver Car Time Gap
1 12 New Zealand Fabian Coulthard Ford Mustang GT 1:12'04.1541  
2 17 New Zealand Scott McLaughlin Ford Mustang GT 1:12'04.8334 0.6793
3 99 Australia Anton De Pasquale Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'08.3445 4.1904
4 23 Australia Will Davison Ford Mustang GT 1:12'10.0528 5.8987
5 55 Australia Chaz Mostert Ford Mustang GT 1:12'12.4732 8.3191
6 6 Australia Cameron Waters Ford Mustang GT 1:12'15.2493 11.0952
7 97 New Zealand Shane van Gisbergen Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'18.0879 13.9338
8 15 Australia Rick Kelly Nissan Altima L33 1:12'29.7177 25.5636
9 14 Australia Tim Slade Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'30.2983 26.1442
10 8 Australia Nick Percat Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'30.6610 26.5069
11 9 Australia David Reynolds Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'31.2732 27.1191
12 88 Australia Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'32.3132 28.1591
13 7 New Zealand Andre Heimgartner Nissan Altima L33 1:12'34.3100 30.1559
14 5 Australia Lee Holdsworth Ford Mustang GT 1:12'34.5555 30.4014
15 200 Australia Scott Pye Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'36.3828 32.2287
16 35 Australia Todd Hazelwood Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'37.3653 33.2112
17 18 Australia Mark Winterbottom Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'44.9807 40.8266
18 78 Switzerland Simona de Silvestro Nissan Altima L33 1:12'46.6193 42.4652
19 3 Garry Jacobson Nissan Altima L33 1:12'47.1842 43.0301
20 19 Australia Jack Le Brocq Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'57.0047 52.8506
21 21 Australia Macauley Jones Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'58.1166 53.9625
22 34 Australia James Golding Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'13.1224 1 Lap
23 33 New Zealand Richie Stanaway Holden Commodore ZB 1:12'35.1602 1 Lap
24 22 Australia James Courtney Holden Commodore ZB 1:13'15.7725 2 Laps

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