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Jamie Whincup closes in on championship lead with record victory

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Jamie Whincup has become the most victorious Supercars driver, surpassing team-mate Craig Lowndes, as he claimed his 106th victory in the second race at Sydney Motorsport Park today and moved to just 12 points from championship leader Scott McLaughlin.

DJR Team Penske driver McLaughlin had pole position but made a slow getaway and dropped to fourth while Prodrive Racing Australia’s Chaz Mostert claimed the lead.

The safety car was brought out to clear debris from a tyre explosion of Nissan Motorsport driver Rick Kelly early in the race, seeing Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Whincup claiming the lead from Mostert as pit stops began.

Whincup ran away in the lead as Mostert found himself in a tough fight for second with McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen.

At the last pit stop, van Gisbergen managed to get past Whincup and claim the lead. But Whincup had the pace on his team-mate and retook the lead on lap 42, quickly pulling up a gap to win by close to ten seconds.

Van Gisbergen meanwhile had to fight hard to defend from DJR Team Penske drivers Fabian Coulthard and McLaughlin. The Holden driver was unable to withstand the pressure from Coulthard who after an exciting battle made his way past into second with just two laps left of the race.

Van Gisbergen crossed the line in third with McLaughlin right behind in fourth, a duo involved in a controversial incident yesterday which saw penalties handed to both drivers. Van Gisbergen was penalised with 33 seconds for getting alongside McLaughlin too early at the restart and McLaughlin had a further 18 seconds added to his 15-second penalty for the contact at turn two.

Holden driver Nick Percat crossed the line in sixth position ahead of Nissan Motorsport driver Michael Caruso in seventh and Jason Bright rounding off the top eight.

McLaughlin is still on top of the drivers’ championship on 2058 points, just 12 points ahead of Whincup while team-mate Coulthard is up to third, 107 points behind and van Gisbergen fourth, 258 points behind.

The next race is the first endurance race of 2017 with the Sandown 500 on September 16-17th.