Reigning champion says he had no idea what was happening in the race but new engineer Andrew Edwards and the team sure did as they played out a 3 stop race strategy giving van Gisbergen the win
It was the 55th win of his career bringing him within one win of Scott McLaughlin and Garth Tander during his 450th career race start 15 years after his debut.
Taking up the other podium steps were Anton De Pasquale and Chaz Mostert who managed to take the bottom step from Will Brown in the closing stages of the race.
“I thought our strategy was originally a two-stop, so I was surprised we came into the pits that early. I knew a three-pit strategy was an option, but I didn’t know it was going to be that much different. It was awesome for Andrew to get his first win too.” said van Gisbergen.
“After the race he was angry and said he didn’t do a good job, and I had to remind him that we won by 20-seconds. He’s been very self-critical, so this is a good reward for him. It was awesome to have Tony on the podium to accept the team’s trophy as well. Even though the team has had a lot of changes over the break, we’re all working well, everyone’s doing their job and it’s a cool environment to be a part of.”
A talking point of the race was when Andre Heimgartner and Thomas Randle making contact down the pit straight with Heimgartner swerving towards Randle and giving him a seemingly heavy hit into the door.
Heimgartner explained afterwards that he felt Randle had punted him off in the previous corner and wasn’t too happy about that.
Randle meanwhile said he didn’t think the defending that Heimgartner was doing on him was appropriate and he went for a move which he backed out of and ended up tapping Heimgartner on the rear.
