Brendan Lines

February 23, 2020

Mustang driver Scott McLaughlin broke the hearts of Holden fans in the manufacturer’s farewell from the Adelaide 500 snatching an all too close victory from Red Bull’s Shane van Gisbergen.

Scott McLaughlin takes the chequered flag to win the Adelaide 500 – Image Adelaide 500

The win sees McLaughlin now taking back-to-back Adelaide 500 victories.

Undercut by van Gisbergen in the pits after an early safety car, McLaughlin said “we got away with one there absolutely.”

In a race where errors in the pit lane for both teams were the deciding factor, a spirited drive by van Gisbergen in his under-fueled ZB Commodore almost paid-off.

McLaughlin’s DJR Penske Mustang got away to a clean start on the dirty side of the starting grid getting the jump on van Gisbergen who started from pole position.

A Red-flag in the opening laps triggered by Scott Pither’s Commodore going into the wall at the Victoria Park racecourse section, caused both Red Bull and DJR teams to pit under the safety-car.

McLaughlin fueled and took tyres, the traffic in the pit lane caused DJR cars to pit both cars at the same time.

McLaughlin’s pit crew were caught unaware by the Red Bull garage and van Gisbergen was able to pit behind the Mustangs and slip away to take the lead.

It appeared DJR’s own fuel strategy had back-fired letting Red Bull out-fox them in the pitlane.

But Red Bull had another thing coming as van Gisbergen’s pit crew had mistakenly under-fueled his ZB Commodore to only lap 76 of the 78-lap race during their second pit stop.

But van Gisbergen did not simply hand the victory over to McLaughlin, during the middle stint of the race, both drivers matched each other’s time across the first two sectors of the Adelaide street circuit.

With van Gisbergen lighter on fuel, he was able to pull away from McLaughlin in the final sector to build a four-second lead on lap 38.

McLaughlin’s work was cut out to remain in striking distance of the Red Bull which was proving a faster car on track.

“Full credit to Shane and the team they had a fast car today, I think if we were in clear air like we were in the first stint we might have had his measure but he was really fast once he got the clear air,” McLaughlin said.

“Obviously he had a quick car, but yeah it was an awesome battle, because you had that gap if one person made a mistake, if they dropped a little and the other guy did you get it back, it was sort of like tit-for-tat.”

Red Bull played their last card by refueling van Gisbergen and putting him back into the race in fourth on lap 68 with fresh tyres, joining the battle between Holden’s Chaz Mostert and Mustang’s Cam Waters for the remaining podium positions.

Adding insult to injury, van Gisbergen’s Red Bull suffered a right-hand front suspension failure on lap 77, that saw him run wide turning onto the Brock Straight.

van Gisbergen’s Commodore crawled to a halt on the exit of Turn 8, and so did the dreams of Holden fans everywhere for a dream double victory send off in the brand’s final race in Adelaide.

Red Bull Holden Team Principle Mark Dutton put his team’s fuel issues were an ‘honest mistake.’

“Just a bit of a mistake about two seconds too short, Shane drove tremendously to get back to being able to fight and possibly get back on the podium, then we had a front suspension failure,” he said.

But it was not all bad news for Holden fans as Chaz Mostert was the surprise of the day, qualifying fifth and shrugging off illness, the Holden driver stepped onto the podium in his debut race for Walkinshaw-Andretti United, signing off Holden’s racing legacy at Adelaide with a second place.

“To see the emotion in there for the podium it’s pretty amazing,” he said.

It has been a historic week for all Holden fans in Adelaide hoping for the dream send off, they will have to wait to have the last laugh over the Mustangs across the Supercars season.

Supercars head to the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park for the Melbourne 400 March 12-15th