Shane van Gisbergen dejected after missing out on first win of 2020

Triple Eight’s Shane van Gisbergen has lamented a hard day at the office in Adelaide where he went from having the win in his reach to scoring no points in a short space of time.

The three-time Adelaide 500 event winner was in the lead of the 250km race after the first round of pit stops and extended his lead despite reporting an issue with the #97 Holden Commodore’s front anti-roll bar, unable to adjust settings on the fly.

His pain was compounded when the Triple Eight crew were unable to get his minimum fuel drop in the car, forcing him to push hard in what should’ve been his final stint to minimise the pain when he did finally come in to take a splash of E85.

After pushing hard through the back portion of the race, a suspension failure with just three laps to go took him out of the race as he was passing Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters for third place.

Dejected after the race, van Gisbergen reflected on being in the position to push in the first place and says he was lucky not to take out the Tickford driver when his car eventually gave up.

“I think the first problem was the front roll-bar broke after the first safety car”, he said.

“That’s what’s eventually failed on the right-front; it’s put more load on it throughout the race.

“The fuel thing is what it is, we’ll work that out, but coming back through, I’d just passed Cam (Waters) and then it failed.

“Lucky I didn’t take him out because if I did take him out, he wouldn’t have given me a lift back to the pits!

“I felt pretty good, we’ve got a really fast car but it’s a shame to not leave here with a bag full of points. Keep pushing, long year.”

With no points from race two, van Gisbergen sits 13th in the standings, 159 points behind race winner and two-time defending series champion, Scott McLaughlin.